As Breast Cancer Awareness Month ends, a viral image is helping women detect breast cancer early. Thanks to the Know Your Lemons Foundation, an image of lemons in various states—i.e., bumpy or sunken— with descriptions next to them shows women the variety of signs of breast cancer. This is incredibly important, considering only 2% of women know all the signs of it.
Sadly, breast cancer has surpassed lung cancer as the most common cancer diagnosed globally. Half of breast cancer deaths in developing countries occur in women under 50. For every 100 breast cancer deaths in that age group, it creates 210 maternal orphans. And while an entire month is dedicated to raising awareness each year, the sea of pink ribbons doesn’t necessarily translate into actionable breast health/cancer information.
But why? That’s because people think they aren’t at risk if breast cancer doesn’t run in their family. But, only 10-15% of breast cancer patients have a family history of it. In fact, most people diagnosed are the first in their family.
“People also don’t realize there are 12 symptoms of breast cancer, and it can be confusing to understand what screening options are right for you,” Corrine Ellsworth-Beaumont, CEO of Know Your Lemons, told NEW YOU. “When breast cancer is found in the earliest stage, the survival rate is 99%. But when it’s found in the latest stage, it’s unsurvivable. This is why knowing the 12 signs of breast cancer, knowing your normal, and getting screened according to your risk level is so important.”
Know Your Lemons is helping to change that through their creative approach to making breast health easy to talk about through their free Know Your Lemons Breast Check app. The Webby Awards named it as one of the Top 5 Health and Fitness apps for 2022 – alongside Apple Fitness, Nike Fitness, Warby Parker, and Kaiser Permanente. And it’s the world’s first app designed to improve the early detection of breast cancer.
In addition, Know Your Lemons offers classes and materials. Their 12 signs of breast cancer graphic using lemons in place for breasts is a simple yet powerful image and has been translated into 32 languages.The foundation even did a study with two groups of patients- those who had seen the campaign and those who had not – they found the group who had seen the campaign had 39% fewer cases of Stage 4 breast cancer.
“We make it easy to learn how to take care of your breast health engagingly and visually,” said Ellsworth-Beaumont. Our unique approach is removing stigma and fear around breasts and empowering women to advocate for themselves in an unprecedented way.”
