Colorectal cancer is on the rise in young people

[RSherman]

I just heard this story on NPR and am not surprised.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/20/1163697875/colon-cancer-signs-screening-young-adult

Young people in their 20s and 30s are being diagnosed with colorectal cancer.

I am not surprised. My students carried around baggies of orange "food" all day: Doritos, Fritos, Cheese doodles, orange crackers, cereal. At home they eat from freezer to microwave: pizza pockets, chicken nuggets, etc.

My own nephew ate freezer to microwave and was having trouble going to the bathroom.

We fought Big Tobacco. It's time to battle Big Pharma and Big Processed Food. I read a book awhile ago that stated a Republican lawmaker caved to Big Processed Food and passed a law that would preempt any attempted lawsuits, such as the suits that were lodged against cigarette companies. Way to go. Now it's costing $ and lives.

[mucifer]

1. also being born in world where everything is made of plastic can't be good for cancer.

[brewens]

2. I wonder if energy drinks are partly to blame. It's been almost six years since I had one.

Since I retired. I drove collection vehicles for a blood center and worked mobile blood drives. I always had an energy drink on hand in case I got sleepy driving but tried to not drink them too much. The kids I worked with really downed that shit.

I just had my second clean colonoscopy. I've turned into a homemade whole food fanatic. Hopefully I don't have to worry about colorectal cancer much.

[MissB]

15. I assume it's more lack of any real fiber

Fast food, processed food - just not a lot of fiber.

When my oldest was ready for kindergarten, I toured the nearest elementary schools. They were so proud to serve breakfast to all kids. That truly is awesome, but I was horrified by the options. They could select from a cinnamon roll (Cinnabon?), breakfast burrito (Taco bell) or breakfast sandwich (McDonalds). Now, the items didn’t come from those fast food places but they mimicked them. It just seemed like it was designed to condition kids to eating, well, crap.

My two kids are in their early 20s and both cook foods from scratch. They’re both boys. Lots of fresh veggies and whole grains.

We could afford to feed them well.

[brewens]

16. That must have been about the same time I was a dairy delivery guy and schools were on

my rout. I'm in Idaho and they still had really good quality food. Much of it was the same as we had in the 60s and 70s. They just had more options.

[RSherman]

20. School breakfast and lunch

I'm glad you brought up school meals. It was as you describe at the last school where I taught. Lunch was all carbs: breaded chicken patty on a roll. The sides were fries or mashed or mac salad. Served with fruit cup and dessert.

The Ag. Dept. at school installed a refrigerated milk vending machine as a fundraiser. The students brought the milk to class and I asked to see the ingredients. The "milk" was flavored and contained many, many calories, carbs, sodium, etc. It wasn't so much milk as it was a milkshake.

My Entrepreneurship class ran a bakery. At some point the Superintendent told us we had to bake low fat "healthy" cookies to comply with some sort of NYS law. At the same time, the cafeteria installed a refrigerated vending machine. One item was a huge blueberry muffin. My students bought one and we compared our cookie's calories, fat, sodium, carbs, etc. with the "healthy" muffin. We put together a presentation showing the muffin was worse.

Much of today's food contains sugar/salt/fat. Manufacturers know that outsized combo in foods is just as addictive as tobacco and alcohol. https://www.amazon.com/Salt-Sugar-Fat-Giants-Hooked/dp/0812982193
These corporations do their research, do our detriment.

On a positive note, there is a woman in the Albany area: Aneesa Waheed. She owns & operates (maybe 6?) Moroccan restaurants. Her daughters recently came home from school saying they could not really find school lunch offerings that appealed to them. Ms. Waheed is working with her children's school to provide some Moroccan foods and the school is receptive! She set up a sampling table during lunch one day and the middle school kids loved her food.

One poster said they thought kids ate healthier today. Not my students. Seriously. They snack on processed stuff all day, then eat from the freezer at night. I used to cook for them (I had small classes). Kids who thought they did not like certain foods, found that they did. I found that kids really do crave good, fresh food. And I'm not blaming the kids or their families. This was a small, rural school. A lot of need and poverty. Parents maybe working 3rd shift, so kids had to fend for themselves. Both of my parents worked, but I am grateful that my Dad taught my sister and I to cook when we were 10. We also learned in Home Ec classes and from 4-H leaders. Every school should offer Family & Consumer Science (home ec), but that is always the first class to go in a bad budget year.

[brewens]

23. I had milk machines and you are right. I can't remember the brand name offhand, but

only the plain milk was healthy.

Looking back at what we kids got as sodas and snacks in the 60s the difference is huge. A 12 once and sometimes smaller soda and regular candy bar was maybe 1/3 of what parents buy their kids now without even thinking about it.

[RSherman]

24. Yes--soda

My parents did not keep soda, cookies, etc. in the house so my siblings and I used to toddle over to the neighbor who fed us grape soda and cookies. What a treat! And my grandfather's cousin, Knut, lived alone in the farm house. He used to give us cream soda or birch beer. So, soda was always a treat, never a regular diet. I hear/read that for young men, soda is 30% of their diet.

[Sky Jewels]

21. Nitrates (found in bacon, packaged lunch meat, etc.) are also a factor in colon cancer.

However, I don't know if young people are ingesting more of that stuff these days, or what...

[SheltieLover]

3. Kicking for Visibility

[BlackSkimmer]

4. I can't stand microwave meals.

They all have an odd taste to me.

I use mine rarely, usually to heat up my coffee.

[SheltieLover]

5. Kicking for Visibility

[Trenzalore]

6. Diet and other environmental factors

Pesticides, quality of meat/chicken, etc.

I was paging through my mother's cook book from the early 70s. Lots of lard and crisco in the recipes and MSG. Don't know if eating that stuff was necessarily better than what we are eating today.

[womanofthehills]

8. Good fats are now being recommended by some nutritionists

Cooking with beef tallow is being recommended as is eating grass fed butter like cheese. The more cheese, butter, animal fat the better according to the carnivore movement.

I will only eat grass fed beef but I’m lucky I live in ranch country. Nothing like grass fed/grass finished beef - raised sustainably a few miles from your house. - talk about sourcing local foods. My neighbor owns the local small grocery store & she has large organic gardens for produce at her store. .

[Trenzalore]

9. Things were less factory farmed 50 years ago

I've moved to a mostly pescatarian diet but will eat some meat if it is sourced correctly.

Factory farming is my estimate other than the convenience foods as to why the cancer rates are rising in young people

[malaise]

7. Very important

Rec

I gave away the microwave years ago and don't eat junk food

[GoCubsGo]

10. Yes, and all that processing leads to what is probably the ultimate culprit:

Lack of fiber. They're eating crap, and not eating fruits and veggies, which not only have needed vitamins and other nutrients, but also the fiber that helps keep the gut cleaned out.

[Celerity]

11. Us younger folk here in Sweden still eat a far healthier diet than younger Americans do.

Especially fresh fruit and vegetables. Do not get me wrong, there are still plenty of shite things to eat here, but another factor is the portion size and amount eaten. American sizes are insanely huge far too often.

Combine that with a lot less exercise (on balance) for Americans versus Swedes (and many other nations) and you get the obesity wave the US suffers under.

All if this of course is far from limited to the youth. There is just a staggering amount of obese and morbidly obese people of all ages in the US compared to many other advanced nations.

[llmart]

12. Let's not forget the liquids they consume.

Excess consumption of alcohol and especially beer can also lead to colorectal cancer. Another poster mentioned his students and energy drinks like Red Bull. I worked in a law library and a university, and a coworker and I were completely amazed at how much junk food and bad drinks the students consumed in any given day.

[LeftInTX]

13. I was born in 1956. We ate junk beyond belief

Tons of processed foods and nitrates. Veggies were mostly canned.
I really don't what is causing it in young people. Probably more research needs to be done. Is it certain demographics, earlier detection, lifestyle etc?

How much has it increased?? Etc etc

I think overall, today's youth eat healthier than baby boomers.

[womanofthehills]

14. I remember rarely eating between meals and very long walks to school

We had gardens and my grandmother froze tons of veggies so we had fresh GMO free corn & garden veggies all year.

Glyphosate can cause cancer and since 1974 larger & larger amts have been used on food. When we were younger, there were not a gazillion choices of chips and frozen dinners. I remember being at a friends house and we had coke with our dinner. Even then, I was surprised by that - I thought she had an uninformed mother. Now, I love the occasional Mexican coke with dinner.

[BlackSkimmer]

18. Wow, born in the late 50s too. Big difference for me.

I still remember the first time I drank a coke at a friends house. My mother simply never bought soft drinks. Never developed a taste. Both my parents were British, so perhaps that's why.

Mom also cooked breakfast and dinner. I don't remember ever eating anything that came out of the box, except for things like brownie mix or such. We did eat candy, but since I never had a sweet tooth...

Even my elementary school only allowed us to bring "healthy" snacks. I remember it was called "fruit break."

Once in awhile we would go to Hardees, which was a big deal, but we only did that when dad was out of town.

I think my first junk food must have been 6th grade or so. I remember it clearly. Bugles lol. To this day, I don't buy stuff like that simply because I never got used to it as a kid.

[LeftInTX]

19. Breakfast: The newest sweetened cereal flavor

Lunch: School lunch or bologna or PBJ
Sometimes at home we had spam and if lucky, tuna. Also Campbell's soup
Dinner: Meat of some sort and a canned vegetable etc. Brocolli and caulfiflower were frozen and smothered with velveeta. Canned carrots were covered with surgery glaze. Green beans straight from the can. Salad was usually some sort of jello salad. We traveled in a trailer too and ate lots of hot dogs and canned sloppy Joe's, lots of diet soda like Fresca.

When I got in HS, lots of lunch meats, frozen pizza, ice cream etc. By the time I was in 4th grade, I would come home and eat three bowls of cereal. In HS, I did lots of stuff with Ragu. Surprisingly, the most I weighed was 105 pounds.

I also baked cookies, pies etc.

[BlackSkimmer]

25. Ugh, it horrifies me to see so many people ate canned veggies.

Even as a child, I could not stand them. I could tell in a millisecond if it came from a can lol.

I hated if I was a guest at someone's house and was served a canned vegetable. Had to eat it to be polite. Shudder.

[greatauntoftriplets]

17. My nephew was diagnosed with rectal cancer at age 27.

After three surgeries and having to wear a colostomy for nearly a year, he was pronounced cancer-free. There's a history of it in his father's family.

[RSherman]

22. Republicans pass bill blaming people for their own obesity

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/house-passes-cheeseburger-bill/

As I stated in another post, the sugar/salt/fat of processed "food" is addictive. The manufacturers know this. It is NOT an accident. This is the same argument and it's smokers own fault that they smoked and got cancer. Until the whistleblower told the world that the tobacco industry KNEW cigarettes were addictive and purposely produced them that way.