This week the World Health Organisation released a press statement on the carcinogenicity of the consumption of red meat and processed meat. The statement, which elicited media headlines comparing eating hot dogs to smoking cigarettes, reported findings from a group of 22 global experts examining more than 800 studies to evaluate the association between cancer and consumption of red meat and processed meat.
Unlike the frenzied headlines that misunderstand cancer risk and classification, the actual WHO statement reported on carcinogenic (potential cancer causing) classifications, not the magnitude of risk. Specifically, they classified processed meat as carcinogenic to humans (Group 1) because of the numerous studies with similar findings linking consumption to colorectal cancer.
Because processed meat is now classified alongside cigarette smoking in Group 1, the inevitable confusion results with people assuming that smoking cigarettes is comparable to eating sandwich meat. But, again, the classification is only referring to the amount of studies with the same results. This is why the association between red meat and cancer (largely colorectal but also pancreatic and prostate) earned a weaker categorisation of probably carcinogenic to humans (Group 2A) based on more limited evidence (fewer studies).
Meat, unlike cigarettes, has nutritional value and to make flippant comparisons between the two is not helpful, but in fact adds confusion to dietary recommendations. The research supports much of what has been already stated about limiting meat consumption, but it does not point to radically altering people’s diets based on this information. Yet, one question remains. What does this mean for those living in poverty?
In 2014, over 14 percent of Americans were living in poverty. When you isolate for age, you discover that over 20 percent of children are living at or below the poverty line. Much has been said about food insecurity among those who are living in impoverished conditions, but more needs to be said about the quality of foods accessible to those living in these conditions.
It was common knowledge that there is a correlation between the consumption of processed foods and cancer, but now the WHO announcement concretised that correlation by using language that talks about these foods in ways similar to how they discuss cigarettes. To be sure, those living in poverty are not the only ones that consume bacon, ham, and other processed meats. However, if you are poor, there is a higher chance that you will.
Instead of going on social media and pontificating from a position of middle to upper-middle class privilege, social justice advocates need to take a hard look at barriers to health among those living in poverty. 16 million children are at or below the poverty line in America. That’s more than 1 in 5. What the poor among us need are social changes and governmental policies that give them access to high quality foods – not sermonising or self-congratulatory behaviour on the part of vegans, vegetarians, pescatarians, and petite bourgeois foodies.
The media’s focus on comparing (both visually and verbally) the eating of processed meat to smoking cigarettes is even more questionable when the comparison to another Group 1 carcinogen, alcohol, seems like a more accurate comparison. According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), seven (and possibly 8) types of cancer are linked to alcohol consumption, and for each of these cancers, just as with the consumption of processed meats, the risk increases with the amount consumed. Decreasing alcohol consumption is often recommended, for example, to reduce women’s risk of breast cancer, but halting alcohol consumption altogether is not typically suggested. The same recommendation is made for processed meat consumption.
Cigarette smoking, on the other hand, is not only linked to 14 types of cancer, according to the ACS, but there are no recommended levels for “safe” or less risky consumption. So why do media outlets compare the consumption of processed meats and cigarette smoking as Group 1 carcinogens when alcohol consumption might be a more logical comparison?
Again, because moralising health around class based behaviours is a common practice both within public health and in the broader media. We must be careful about how we discuss and represent health messages to avoid embedding our societal biases into prescriptions for health.
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