Food choices - facts
- Eating a healthy, balanced diet can help you keep a healthy body weight.
- For the things you can do to prevent cancer, your weight is second most important (being a non-smoker is #1).
- What you eat is very important in protecting you from cancer.
- Foods such as fruits, vegetables, beans, legumes and foods high in fibre can reduce the risk of cancer.
- Some foods, such as processed and red meat and salt-preserved foods can increase the risk of developing cancer. Processed meat is deli meats, bacon and hot dogs.
- Strong evidence shows that eating lots of processed and red meat can increase the risk of bowel cancer, and possibly stomach and pancreatic cancer.
- You can use just your hands to measure portion sizes (more info below).
- If you don't use tobacco, the most important cancer risk factors that can be changed are body weight, diet and physical activity.
- If you have good eating habits (portion size and nutrition are both important) and are physically active, your body weight will be easier to manage.
- Teaching kids to eat nutritious food builds long-term healthy habits they can use when they are adults.
Unhealthy food choices can increase your chances of developing the following cancers:
- Bowel (key words: colon, rectum, large intestine, colorectal)
- Lung
- Breast
- Pancreatic
- Bladder
- Esophageal
- Stomach
- Head and neck
- Liver
- Ovarian