I’m not a big advocate of finding cures for cancer. Call me whatcha wanna I’d rather prevent the damn thing in the first place. Did you know that majority of the cancers we develop as human beings are causes of our environment, our eating habits and our overall lifestyle? With that said, through what we do in our daily activities in our lifespan, we’re actually the ones responsible for getting cancer? What a thought!
I’m on a mission to empower myself towards better health as well as empower my sisters, aunts, cousins and mothers to do the same. Unfortunately, black women are the hardest hit by breast cancer and have the highest mortality rates all simply because of our lifestyle as well as certain environmental injustices.
Stand cancer in the face before it starts with a few things that I want you to think about and consider to help live a cancer-free lifestyle.
1. Ditching toxic products – Majority of the products on the beauty supply shelf are laden with estrogen-mimicking chemicals and hormone disruptors have been linked to breast cancer. So that faithful relaxer you use can also be putting you at risk for developing cancer later on. My advice… Go natural and save yourself the heartache later on. But don’t just take my word on it, check out what the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics had to say after testing products from black beauty supply stores.
2. Exercising – Being a black woman with black hair can be tough especially when you don’t want to ruin your do’. Unfortunately, messing up our hair is one of the reasons why we don’t get enough exercise and have higher rates of obesity, diabetes and also cancer. Georgetown University conduced a study concluding that exercise can help to reduce breast cancer in African American women. So tie down your hair with a cotton bandana to prevent sweat from sweating out your look and walk, jog, dance or join the gym to get your
daily workout on.
3. It’s happening at a younger age – Breast cancer is discriminating and now it’s not just hitting older women, it’s also hitting younger black women. According to NPR, African American women ages 35 to 44 have a death rate from breast cancer twice that of white women the same age. That has to be a rude awakening for all of us.
It’s important that we work to kick up our health game, go organic, ditch chemical laden products and work towards increasing our health through our daily lifestyle. I’ve started working out more regularly as well and eating better. Who’s with me? We all need support on this journey towards health!
Sherrell Dorsey is a natural beauty expert, writer, speaker and advocate of health, wellness for the communities of color women. In addition to creating OrganicBeautyVixen.com, Sherrell’s public work has been featured on Tyra Banks's beauty and fashion site TypeF.com, Jones Magazine and MySalonScoop.com. Follow Sherrell on twitter at www.twitter.com/organicvixen and connect with her on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/OBVMedia
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Natural Diva