Breast Health Guide, Taking Care of Your “Girls”, Dr. Marisa C. Weiss

MOM TO MOM: A Word from the Weiss

 
The goal of our book, Taking Care of Your “Girls,” is to take care of our girls by addressing their fears, questions, attitudes, and concerns about breast development and breast health. The information in this book is meant to empower them to become smart, healthy women with strength, confidence, and spirit.

Complete breast development, from the very start to the final finish, occurs over ten years. Growing breast tissue is more sensitive than full-grown breasts—since the food, water, beverages, and air our daughters take in become the building blocks for her new breast tissue, forming the foundation of her future breast health.

There is growing evidence that today’s young girls have little knowledge about breast health, and this affects their physical and emotional well-being. From underserved young girls with limited access to health care and health/wellness information to the most educated and privileged girls in private schools, lack of information and misinformation about what it means to have healthy breasts are pervasive among girls today.

These are just a few of the responses Dr. Marisa C. Weiss, acclaimed breast oncologist and president and founder of , collected during a recent poll of more than three thousand girls and their moms. As a woman, doctor, and mother, Dr. Weiss knew the girls she spoke with would have a lot of questions when it came to the topic of breast development and breast health. She was surprised to find, however, that girls—and their moms—had a huge list of worries and misconceptions about their breasts and what is “normal.”

Seeking to give girls a safe and reliable resource for information, Dr. Weiss and her eighteen-year-old daughter, Isabel Friedman, wrote TAKING CARE OF YOUR “GIRLS”: A Breast Health Guide for Girls, Teens, and In-Betweens (A Three Rivers Press Paperback Original; September 2, 2008), a pioneering, comprehensive guide to knowing and understanding the “girls.”

Our nonprofit organization, , together with the Lankenau Hospital, recently surveyed more than three thousand Philadelphia-area public and private school girls in the sixth through twelfth grades.

The results were shocking:

Although many girls are interested in hearing about breast health from their doctors, they often encounter different doctors with each visit and are unable to build a rapport enabling them to ask personal questions.

• About 90 percent of mothers say they’d like to talk to their daughters about breast health, but only about 30 percent have had the conversation.
• Over 30 percent of girls have perceived a normal change in their breasts to be a sign of breast cancer.
• More than 20 percent of girls think breast cancer is caused in part by infection, tanning, drug use, stress, breast injury, or bruising; however, none of these is a risk factor.

Few girls know how to keep their breasts healthy.

The way in which girls and young women feel about themselves has a direct impact on the way they perceive themselves in every aspect of their lives. Self-confidence and self-esteem especially empower young girls to take on the challenges of life and reach their fullest and greatest potential.

It’s us—their moms or other key trusted people in their lives— whom our girls want to be their source of this essential information about breast health. So it’s up to us to get the conversation started in an age-appropriate, sensitive, responsive, respectful, and accessible way. Plus we have to keep our ears and eyes wide open and tuned in to their circles of influence: the people they look up to, the images they aspire to, their media sources, and the always-changing technologies they use to plug into the outside world.

TOP TEN: THINK PINK, LIVE GREEN TIPS

One – Buy in season produce from local sources to minimize exposure to pesticides and preservatives.

Two – Buy organic sources of produce whenever possible, particularly produce with the highest pesticide levels (like peaches, apples, bell peppers, strawberries). Look for proper codes: USDA organic, 100% organic, and PLU codes that are 5 digits and start with the number 9, like 94011 (organic bananas). Select non-organic produce that’s grown with the lowest pesticide levels (like cantaloupe, blueberries, pineapple, green beans and broccoli).

Three – Wash all produce—to remove pesticide residues and dirt. Use cold tap water or acid solution (one part white vinegar to four parts water). Peel produce with waxy coating, like some apples and cucumbers.

Four – Eat your produce fresh or freeze in glass jars for other seasons. Refrigerate organic fruits and vegetables (except bananas) to make them last longer—since they’re grown without preservatives.

Five – Buy hormone-free dairy products and red meat. Limit the amount of red meat consumed to two or fewer times per week.

Six – Pick a variety of fish—small and large. The small to medium-sized fish: salmon, striped bass, herring, and tilapia, are healthier than the big fish: tuna, swordfish, and halibut.

Seven – Reach for simple, whole or fresh foods. Avoid or limit amount of processed food that contain tons of ingredients with little to no nutritional content.

Eight – Avoid or limit your consumption of high fat or fried foods and blackened-grilled foods.

Nine  – Drink water or unsweetened beverages. Tap water is often cleaner and safer than bottled water. Avoid regular and artificially sweetened sodas, ice tea and lemonade—they have no nutritional value, they encourage sweet cravings, and don’t help you lose weight.

Ten  – Cook in stainless steel, anodized aluminum, cast iron, ceramic or glass containers. Avoid cooking, baking, storing and freezing in plastic. Use a stainless steel or aluminum water bottle. Avoid use of #s 3, 6, and 7 plastic bottles (the number appears in a triangle on the bottom of the bottle) because they can contain potentially harmful chemicals like bisphenol A.

Your love and dedication, supported by the information in Taking Care of Your “Girls,” can make a life-enhancing and life-saving difference in the lives of our girls today and better serve the health of our future generations.

 

  Taking Care of Your “Girls”

by Marisa Weiss and Isabel Friedman

A comprehensive handbook on breast health for girls ages eight to eighteen and their mothers offers straightforward, candid answers to questions girls have about their breasts, covering everything from development and puberty to personal health and breast cancer.
 

Girls are saying:

“I don’t ask a lot of questions for a few reasons: 1] I’m afraid everyone already knows the answer and I’m just naïve. 2] If no one else is asking questions, I feel awkward being the only one asking. 3] It’s sort of a private topic that I’m not used to talking about out loud.” —Delia, 16

“I tried to check my breasts, but I got scared because it was a little lumpy. I thought I had breast cancer. But I wouldn’t know what normal feels like since I’ve never compared a cancerous boob to a noncancerous one.” —Trish, 12

“I’ve tried a bunch of times to talk about the fact that—hello, people—I could really use a bra, but no one seems to listen, care, or know what to say.”—Sasha, 11

“My friend told me I was flat as a board. She wasn’t trying to hurt me, but I felt a little insulted.” —Trinity, 11

GIRLS’ WEBSITE

 
<3 Save a Life ~~~ BUY YOUR HOME BREAST Chek™ KIT TODAY <3
 

CANCER PREVENTION is KEY. The chance of a woman having invasive breast cancer some time during her life is about 1 in 8. The chance of dying from breast cancer is about 1 in 36.