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Showing posts from October, 2021

“I know why I have the scars that I do, and the bottom line is that I need them to exist”: Cancer treatment and women’s body image

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With October being Breast Cancer Awareness month, we revisit this great post exploring the impact of breast cancer treatment on women's body image.  The month of October is a time when charities, individuals, brands and businesses in the UK raise awareness of diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. Breast cancer is the most common cancer affecting women in the UK, and in any one month around 5000 women will be diagnosed with the disease (Breast Cancer Care, 2018). Surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and hormone therapy are used to treat women affected, and cancer survival has doubled in the last 40 years (Cancer Research UK, 2018).   Procedures and therapies impact on women’s bodies physically and emotionally as they experience the changes caused by the disease and treatments.   Women might find it difficult to come to terms with a body that differs from idealised media images, and previous work on women’s body image and well-being after cancer treatment has focussed mostly