By KERSTIN SMIT
@by:By KERSTIN SMITH
@by2:Universe Staff Writer
@textCancer education for BYU students is one the goals of the Cancer Awareness Group, an affiliate of the American Cancer Society.
Cancer prevention guidelines are printed by the American Cancer Society, then BYU’s Cancer Awareness Group distributes these monthly at a booth in the ELWC step-down lounge.
Students are invited to visit the booth and pick up pamphlets about cancer detection and take a cancer risk test. Dr. Kim O’Neill, associate professor of microbiology and member of the Cancer Awareness Group said students input lifestyle information and the computer generates a cancer risk assessment.
“College students aren’t immune from ‘adult’ diseases, said Lance Manning, president of the group. Manning fought Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, a type of cancer, in 1991.
Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and leukemia are cancers all age groups fight, according to Jennie Dennis, Cancer Control Program Director of Utah County’s American Cancer Society.
She said it’s naive to think we won’t be affected by cancer. “Two twenty-year-old friends of my family had breast cancer,” she said, “so it can affect you, even at that age.”
Cancer strikes three of every four American families, and one of three Americans will develop cancer in their lifetime, according to the American Cancer Society.
With a simple lifestyle change, one-half of cancer deaths could be prevented, instead of the current one-third rate, he said. These changes include exercising and eating healthy foods.
Making lifestyle changes is difficult, but the way we treat ourselves when we’re young influences how we treat ourselves as we grow older, Dennis said
