According to a recent study, people with obesity have a higher chance of suffering from cancer than the one’s who don’t smoke. The study conducted by Cancer Research UK, also found that almost a third of UK adults are obese and while smoking is still the nation's biggest preventable cause of cancer and carries a much higher risk of the disease than obesity.
Excess weight causes around 1,900 more cases of bowel cancer than smoking in the UK each year. The same worrying pattern is true of cancer in the kidneys (1,400 more cases caused by excess weight than by smoking each year in the UK), ovaries (460) and liver (180).
The research team at the institute started a nationwide campaign in this week to increase the awareness of the link between cancer and obesity. The campaign compares smoking and obesity to show how policy change can help people form healthier habits, not to compare tobacco with food.
"Our children could be a smoke-free generation, but we've hit a devastating record high for childhood obesity, and now we need urgent Government intervention to end the epidemic. They still have a chance to save lives. Scientists have so far identified that obesity causes 13 types of cancer but the mechanisms aren't fully understood. So further research is needed to find out more about the ways extra body fat can lead to cancer," said Mitchell.
The executive of the institute, Professor Linda Bauld said, "There isn't a silver bullet to reduce obesity, but the huge fall in smoking over the years - partly thanks to advertising and environmental bans - shows that Government-led change works. It was needed to tackle sky-high smoking rates, and now the same is true for obesity."
"The world we live in doesn't make it easy to be healthy and we need Government action to fix that, but people can also make changes themselves; small things like swapping junk food for healthier options and keeping active can all add up to help reduce cancer risk," she added.
