Komen three-day event participation on the decline. Susan G. Komen for the Cure officials last week announced that it would cancel seven of its planned 14 three-day walk events for 2014. The events will be canceled in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Phoenix, San Francisco, Tampa Bay and Washington, D.C. This comes more than one year after controversy surrounding the group's decision to stop providing grants for breast screenings at Planned Parenthood. However, facing backlash, Komen officials said it would continue to support the organization. Komen officials have said that participation in events has declined by 37 percent over the last four years.
‘I'm not only fat, but I'm old, too.' A study in the Journal of Eating Disorders suggests that 81 percent of women engage in "fat talk." Women in a sample study frequently made disparaging remarks about their body image. Around age 61, the fat talk morphs into "old talk," with 66 percent of women making disparaging remarks about their aging bodies. The study further highlights the problem some women have with their body image, and the deviation from the "thin-young-ideal."
Throat cancer gets attention. Human papillomavirus (HPV) has been in the spotlight. According to a report published in the Journal of National Cancer Institute, the incidence rate of HPV-related oral cancer among white men and women increased between 2000 and 2009 and the virus accounts for about 60 percent of cancer cases in the throat area. Not everyone who has HPV — the most common sexually transmitted disease — will develop cancer. According to the American Medical Association, of the 16 million people who have oral HPV, fewer than 15,000 will develop cancer. Doctors say it could take more than 10 years before the virus can develop into cancer. It has been estimated that at least half of all Americans will have HPV sometime in their lives. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 90 percent of people, the virus will be cleared in the body within two years.