IN MY VIEW... BEATING CANCER MEANS TEACHING OUR CHILDREN HOW TO COOK

AS A junior surgeon in 1973, I spent many hours assisting at operations, the time spent with my seniors being a source of both inspiration and education.

A common topic of discussion was the causes of disease, and all too often cancer was the theme.

Yet while much progress has been made with some of the most common cancers, more than 40 years later there has been little change for pancreatic cancer.

Despite the continuing rise in its incidence, only 8 per cent of patients are cured. A major problem is that only 20 per cent of patients are eligible for surgery as diagnosis is always so late, with few if any symptoms occurring until the tumour has spread.

So the emphasis must be on both improving methods for early diagnosis and discovering and eliminating the causes.

But there is hope. A recent study (just published in the journal Cancer) offers a startling insight, with a strong link between childhood obesity and pancreatic cancer as an adult. The risk is fourfold for adolescents who are obese (and doubles for those who are merely overweight).

The research involved a million children. While there may be other environmental factors, such as smoking and alcohol, with obesity linked to other cancers, too, what greater incentive can there be for parents to radically change the way we feed our children?

It’s not just about making manufacturers reduce the sugar content in foods. Parents, those involved in education and all policymakers must take control of what’s lost: a sensible healthy programme, starting with a push to encourage a much higher rate of breastfeeding and compulsory health education as part of a reinvigorated programme of home economics in schools.

Plus, of course, it should be compulsory for schools to include the ‘Daily Mile’ — getting every child out of the classroom to run or jog at their own pace for 15 minutes every day — in their curriculum. The cost of not doing this is simply too high.