Author Archives: pgala1

Alcohol consumption causes breast cancer: Did you know?

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It is clear that many women still don’t know about the harm alcohol can cause, including breast cancer. How can we better disseminate these messages?

Unfortunately, there are several women and girls who are not aware of the consequences of alcohol. Through my current research using the YRBS 2017 survey, it appears that high school girls are starting to drink earlier than before, and Black and Hispanic girls are engaging in binge drinking more than their male counterparts.

During my time in middle and high school, health teachers only discussed that alcohol and sex is wrong and should be avoided completely, but they did not tell us what the side effects are of engaging in drinking. They basically only said that we would not be able to drive after drinking, and that our vision would be blurry. Nothing about cancer.

Many people, including myself get to college not knowing that alcohol causes more problems than just liver cancer. One drink and we’ll be fine right? But one drink can contain 4 shots of vodka. Don’t you think that affects your body, especially if you continue with that mindset? The answer is YES. And to my women friends, did you know that the more alcohol we drink, the more we increase our chances of developing breast cancer? Yeah, neither did I until a few weeks ago….and I’m 23. 

Here is an excerpt from breastcancer.org:

“Research consistently shows that drinking alcoholic beverages — beer, wine, and liquor — increases a woman’s risk of hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer. Alcohol can increase levels of estrogen and other hormones associated with hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer. Alcohol also may increase breast cancer risk by damaging DNA in cells.”

Did you know that before reading this blog? 

–Yeah, I didn’t think so. This goes to show that important information related to alcohol and cancer has not been given often to the general public. 

What we should do to disseminate this information better:

  1. Provide healthy drinking guidelines to high school and college students. 
    • Here’s an infographic on what excessive alcohol use is. I strongly believe pictures describe 1,000 words.
  2. Once in college, Resident Assistants (RAs) should be responsible for giving a safe drinking lecture and holding an exercise to demonstrate how much is okay to drink and what kind of diseases can come from drinking. Speaking from experience, college students learn more from people their own age– neither professors nor administrators. 
  3. I strongly believe in community programs. Macon, Georgia is a relatively large city and puts together something called “Open Streets” every year. During this program, the streets are blocked off in the city, and open for people to partake in exercise classes and ride their bikes all across town! Atlanta has a similar thing called Atlanta Streets Alive. These programs are super successful. So, maybe at these programs, alcohol lectures can be given! 
  4. Fliers!!! Fliers are so powerful! Pictures. Words. Colors. It’s eye-catching. One of the best ways I got information about events and programs in college was through fliers. Location is key! They need to be placed where young people go, such as the mall, the grocery store, the movies, etc. 
  5. Advertisements on social media. Recently, I have noticed advertisements about the JUUL on Snapchat. Every post I look at, there’s an advertisement about how the JUUL leads to certain health issues. I think social media is an easy and effective way to reach young people and the population that drinks the most. 

 

Works cited:

https://www.breastcancer.org/risk/factors/alcohol

https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/aa83/aa83.htm

Mommy Drinks Because of Me: Memes and Mommy Juice Products

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Have you ever heard of something called a mommy sippy cup or mommy juice? No? Neither did I, until I signed up for a class all about it. After my first day in class, I have seen so many mommy sippy cups and things related to moms drinking. “The tumbler of mommy juice became the signal of the end of a day of parenting—a hard-earned reward, an escape form the difficulty of the day” (Ravishly). Take a look at this cup!

Isn’t it SO cute! Okay okay, but actually though, you might be wondering if that product is real. Check out this link to go buy one for yourself (Just kidding. I don’t endorse that): https://www.etsy.com/market/mommy%27s_sippy_cup

Here are a few questions to ask yourself before you continue reading:

  • Have you ever seen your mom, or a mom you know, drink?
  • Does that mom have children?
  • Does that mom have young children?
  • Have you ever been stressed about something, and taken a drink because of it?

If the answers to these questions were yes, you should probably keep reading.

As you know, the internet, texts, fliers, and social media are full of something called memes. According to dictionary.com, a meme is “a humorous image, video, piece of text that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by Internet users.” Pay attention to the word in red. Humorous. That’s important. Memes are supposed to be funny. Memes are supposed to be spread from people to people. Platform to platform. But where is the line of something being funny and something being dangerous and wrong? Below I discuss a few memes that have come to my attention.This one is just sad. This meme makes it appear as if mothers only drink because of their children, as if their children cause so much pain and stress in their lives. People who are not mothers view this as funny. They view this as reality. They view this as….well, “if this is true, do I really want to have children?” The next meme (below) shows the same concept. “Make sure you get your mom a bottle of wine for Mother’s Day. After all, you are the reason she drinks.” If I heard someone tell me this, I’d be so offended. Unfortunately, sometimes this is true. People drink to forget. The consequences of memes like this are that some women will believe them, and some mom’s will think it’s okay to drink all the time just to take the edge off of being a mother. Let’s not forget most meme users are younger. Just imagine for a second: all these young girls seeing these memes and wondering if they are true.

 

Please tell me how the below meme is okay. What if it is true? There has to be some truth to this in some cases. Props to stay at home mothers. That is a full time job and some say the hardest job of all. However, if you are a daytime drinking, stay at home mom, looking after a child, isn’t that a contradiction? How can you be looking after a child and also drinking? Not all of your focus will be on that child. According to Women’s Health Magazine, daytime drinking can lead to:

  1. It becoming a habit
  2. Getting dehydrated
  3. Drinking way more than you expect to 

 

And, just imagine if your babysitter did that while watching your child.

 

What my point is…..

These mommy memes are not cool or funny. They shouldn’t exist, and they should not be spreading across the Internet like wildfire. Young girls and boys are on the internet everyday. Their lives revolve around it. They want to share things they think are funny- including these mommy memes. Some consequences of these memes and mommy sippy cup products are that some of these young girls are going to think that it is okay to drink. And, with the increasing amount of women drinking these days, this is even worse. The earlier people are introduced to the concept of drinking, the worse it is.

Lastly, here’s a mother’s point about these memes:

She believes that these mommy memes and quotes are not “message(s) I’m comfortable with my kids seeing as normal or usual. I don’t want my kids to think that I’m counting the minutes until it’s 5pm somewhere” (Ravishly). She believes that alcohol use should not be normalized, and that it harms families and kids who grow up in an environment where it is in use and where they feel unwanted.

Here are the biggest consequences of these memes:

  1. Mom’s start believing them and thinking it is normal to drink everyday
  2. Increasing the likelihood of alcohol dependence
  3. Children thinking they can drink because their mom drinks
  4. Children thinking their parents do not love them

 

Websites used:

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/meme

https://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/a19934218/dangers-of-day-drinking/

https://ravishly.com/mommy-juice-jokes