Pink Ribbons and Baby Carrots: Giving Prevention the Spotlight this October

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Oct 29

Last year, I was diagnosed with Stage 1 breast cancer. We caught it early, I received excellent treatment, and today I'm cancer free.

So what is a breast cancer story doing on the Small Bites Adventure Club blog? October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and National Farm to School Month, and for me the two meet in one idea: prevention.

First, a quick public service announcement. If you're a woman 40 or older and due for a mammogram, stop what you're doing and schedule it. The U.S. The Preventive Services Task Force recommends a mammogram every two years for women over 40, and some groups suggest more often, so ask your doctor what's right for you.

We know you're busy. No rush. We'll wait!

Done?

Good.

Screenings like this catch cancer early, and that matters enormously. But it's different from prevention, the work of stopping a problem before it starts. That's the part I've been passionate about for decades, and the part I want to talk about today.

Prevention: The Unsung Hero

You've probably noticed a lot of pink this month: ribbons, shirts, shoes. October brings tremendous attention to breast cancer research, treatment, and the search for a cure, and I'm grateful for it. I'm here because of those advances.

But today I want to spotlight the less glamorous workhorse of public health: Prevention. A 2024 American Cancer Society study found that about 40% of cancer cases among U.S. adults 30 and older were attributable to potentially modifiable risk factors. That's roughly 713,000 cases in 2019. The same study linked about half of cancer deaths, more than 262,000 that year.

What are modifiable risk factors? Cigarette smoking, excess body weight, alcohol consumption, physical inactivity, diet, and infections.

A note on blame. When we talk about prevention, the conversation can slide into blaming people for getting sick. That is not what I mean. No one can say with certainty why any one person develops cancer, and I don't know why I did.

Genetics, environmental exposures, income, and access to healthcare all play a role, and people who do everything "right" still get cancer. These figures describe whole populations, not individual choices. What I'm talking about is what happens when we invest in healthier communities and give people the resources and opportunities to stay healthy.

So what are the daily prevention measures we can all take to reduce our risk of cancer and other chronic diseases? You already know them:

Don’t smoke or vape
Move most days (at least 20 minutes of moderate activity a day)
Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables (3-5 servings a day!)
Cut back on ultra processed foods and sugary drinks
Limit alcohol
Sleep 7+ hours

But leaving prevention up to individual willpower is challenging. (Halloween candy, anyone?) How can we use prevention as a lever for change in our communities? Schools are a strong (and time and cost efficient) place to start: they reach nearly every child, and habits form early there.

Starting Early: Why a Four-Year-Old Matters

At Small Bites Adventure Club, we believe prevention starts early. Really early. With our Veggie Ready program, we aim to send kids to first grade with real exposure to several vegetables and the confidence to make their own healthy snacks.

And, kids need help. According to CDC data from 2021 to 2023, about 62% of the calories eaten by children and teens come from ultra-processed foods.

We're not expecting a four-year-old to prevent cancer and heart disease. We're helping that four-year-old discover that lettuce is delicious, that carrots come in crazy different colors, and that trying something new can be an adventure. A review of preschool studies called the early years a key period for building acceptance, and found that pairing taste exposure with strategies like modeling can last months.

We can't promise that a four-year-old's taste test will change a cancer statistic decades from now. What the evidence supports is narrower, and still powerful: early, repeated, positive experiences make children more willing to eat vegetables, and habits like that are the foundation of prevention.

Now we know that eating vegetables isn’t a magic shield, but it’s one marker of a healthy overall eating pattern, and those patterns support long-term health and disease prevention.

And Then We Cut Nutrition Education

Here's where the story gets less cheerful. The 2025 budget reconciliation law (H.R. 1, signed July 4, 2025) ended federal funding for SNAP-Ed. SNAP-Ed was the nutrition education arm of SNAP. Through schools, universities, nonprofits, and community groups, it helped families with limited incomes learn about healthy eating, food preparation, and physical activity. In its last fiscal year, It had a $536 million budget.

In 2024 alone, SNAP-Ed programs reached over 10 million people through these interventions. Over the last seven years, Small Bites has partnered with organizations that delivered SNAP-Ed programming, so we've seen firsthand the value of this work.

Over the last seven years, Small Bites partnered with organizations that delivered SNAP-Ed programming, so we've seen the value firsthand. Now much of that infrastructure, the educators, partnerships, programs, and years of expertise, is disappearing.

At the very moment we're raising concerns about children's diets and diet-related chronic disease, we're eliminating a major source of funding for nutrition education. As the kids say: make that make sense!

I'm encouraged by the growing attention to healthier school meals, and that matters enormously. But to create lifelong changes in health, kids need access to healthy food and nutrition education. Putting broccoli on a child's plate is important. Helping that child become curious enough to taste it, and love it, is the part we often miss.

Let's Invest in Prevention

Investing can mean funding. It can also mean time, the most precious resource busy teachers and parents have. Here's where each of us can start:

Policymakers: Support programs that make nutritious food, preventive health care, and nutrition education accessible to everyone, and restore a dedicated source of funding for nutrition education.
Teachers: Keep bringing hands-on food education into your classroom. Every taste test, cooking activity, and vegetable exploration counts, and a new vegetable often needs many tastes before it feels familiar.
Parents and Caregivers: Keep offering those vegetables, again and again and without pressure. Invite your children into the kitchen. Learning to enjoy new foods takes practice.
Funders: Keep investing in prevention. It may not make the same headlines as a breakthrough treatment, but the impact can last a lifetime.

I am deeply grateful for the doctors, researchers, and treatments that helped me through breast cancer, and we must keep investing in cures and lifesaving treatment. But the best health care system isn't only one that treats us when we're sick. It's one that gives us every opportunity to stay well.

And sometimes that work starts with a four-year-old, a curious mind, and a bite of broccoli.

Here's to prevention, and to every child being Veggie Ready by first grade!

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