So first, a European epidemiological study on physical activity and breast cancer in women was done, and the results published (PDF of study). Moderate physical activity was found to correlate with lower incidence of breast cancer.

Note this section where they defined types of physical activity:

Then, the media picked it up. I think maybe the BBC was first:
Housework cuts breast cancer risk!
Just do a Google News search on "housework breast cancer" and you'll see how many news sites picked this up. Everyone was so happy to run that headline and dig out a stock photo of a woman with a barely-concealed breast.

Then it went on to blogs - and a lot of misogynists and people who think women should be in the kitchen had to get their little digs in. Rush Limbaugh, for example.

Great deconstruction of the whole thing at Orac's blog Respectful Insolence, which is where I read about it. Orac is a cancer specialist, and he knows how to read a study; he concludes that it's not frightfully significant.

So really, it's not a exciting or important study, it's not really news, and now it's been splattered all over as "Housework reduces breast cancer!"

Well done, media.

Yeah, well, men get breast cancer too. :P

Maybe it has the same effect on prostate cancer. I think that it is time we women started to protect our men by letting them do the housework.

Society doesn't care about prostate cancer. Roughly, the number of men effected by prostate cancer is the same as the number of women effected by breast cancer yet breast cancer receives far more attention in the media and research dollars. I take this to mean that both men and women are interested in boobies... I'm hoping to probe smoking cigars and drinking scotch is protective for prostate cancer. An army of one!

We have a better plan... http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4861

OK...I had to go and see....the man plan!!





But of course!!

Of course, not everyone has the willpower to stick with the program...

Yeah but who's counting???

Haw! ubizmo!

Mutant, honestly, I think women turned around the breast cancer thing themselves and made it trendy. It had been overlooked for years, so people started having fundraisers.
I would go do a fun run to raise money for prostate cancer! I'll bet the t-shirt would be really cool.

Do the hoursework and the other plan might have a better chance of becoming reality!

Nancy LC

I just had to clean the coffee off my key board! Thanks for the first laugh of the day!

ahhh...but I think that they would not even need us to accomplish their task!!

I've been telling my DH this for years.. (um, gee, that smilie has a whole different context here, now doesn't it?)