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A Terrible Disease Kills Thousands Every Year. Let's Stop Pretending It's Cute.

There are over 200,000 new cases of breast cancer every year.

Despite what some organizations might want you to think, beating breast cancer has nothing to do with wearing pink and buying specially branded lemonade and perfume. It's going to take much, much more than that and many more people like these women.

The video is worth watching, but I want to pull out one quote in particular that addresses the language often used when talking about breast cancer: comparing it to fighting a battle or a battle to be won. The truth is, breast cancer isn't something you can "win" against. Emphasis mine:


I don't adhere to the belief that if you just fight hard enough that you'll live. Cause I know a lot of really strong people who have fought really hard and had great attitudes and hadn't lived.

We don't survive. I mean we're not survivors because for one thing there's always the fear of recurrence.

The truth is no matter how long a woman lives after a breast cancer diagnosis her body, her finances, her relationships, her psyche bare a lifelong toll of this diagnosis.

We need to make sure that we have more effective and less toxic treatments. So that fewer women are dying. And we need to end this epidemic so there are less diagnoses in the first place.





For some women, the pink ribbons and the battle metaphors and hopes for a cure are comforting and helpful, and that's fine. A breast cancer diagnosis can be scary, and the pink ribbon campaigns create a sense of community.

But this quote brings up a great point: Looking for a cure is important, but how many pink ribbon organizations do you know that talk actively about finding ways to prevent breast cancer? Pink ribbons are cute and marketable. A cure is marketable. Prevention is not cute, and it's not marketable. But breast cancer *can* be prevented. And pink ribbons aren't for everyone.

So where would you rather your money go? Toward making more pink ribbons? Or figuring out how to prevent more women from getting breast cancer in the first place? I know my answer.

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ACUVUE launches a new campaign to inspire Gen Z to put down their phones and follow their vision

What will you create on your social media break? Share it at #MyVisionMySight.

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If you’ve always lived in a world with social media, it can be tough to truly understand how it affects your life. One of the best ways to grasp its impact is to take a break to see what life is like without being tethered to your phone and distracted by a constant stream of notifications.

Knowing when to disconnect is becoming increasingly important as younger people are becoming aware of the adverse effects screen time can have on their eyes. According to Eyesafe Nielsen, adults are now spending 13-plus hours a day on their digital devices, a 35% increase from 2019.1. Many of us now spend more time staring at screens on a given day than we do sleeping which can impact our eye health.

Normally, you blink around 15 times per minute, however, focusing your eyes on computer screens or other digital displays have been shown to reduce your blink rate by up to 60%.2 Reduced blinking can destabilize your eyes’ tear film, causing dry, tired eyes and blurred vision.3

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Joy

18-year-old took her college savings and bought the restaurant where she was a dishwasher

Samantha Frye, the newest owner of Rosalie's restaurant, is proving there's more than one way to invest in your future.

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There are many way to invest in your future

Eighteen year old Samantha Frye has traded college life for entrepreneurship, and she has no regrets.

Frye began working at Rosalie's Restaurant in Strasburg, Ohio at 16 as a dishwasher, working up the ranks as a kitchen prep, server, then line cook. All while working a second job, sometimes third job.

After graduating high school, Frye started college at Ohio State with plans of studying business or environmental engineering. But when she came back to work a shift at Rosalie’s for winter break, an opportunity arose—the owners had planned to sell the restaurant.
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via Twitter

Everyone's childhood is different. But there are common objects, sights, sounds, smells, and memories from elementary school that most Gen Xers and Millenials share.

Personally, when i think back to being in elementary school in the '80s, I remember the taste of the chocolate ship cookie we got on Fridays (with the pizza). The humiliation of getting nailed in the back during nation ball. And the grumbling, grinding sound that happened when you slipped a disk into the drive on an Apple IIe computer.

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via Pexels

A woman sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat

Everyone wants to know how long they will live and there are many indicators that can show whether someone is thriving or on the decline. But people have yet to develop a magic formula to determine exactly how long someone should expect to live.

However, a doctor recently featured on the "Today" show says a straightforward test can reveal the likelihood that someone aged 51 to 80 will die in the near future.

NBC News medical contributor Dr. Natalie Azar was on the "Today" show on March 8 and demonstrated how to perform the simple “sit to stand test” (aka sit-rising test or SRT) that can help determine the longevity of someone between 51 to 80.

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Health

Women are shocking their boyfriends by showing them how  tampons actually work

The viral videos are a great way to educate men on a sensitive topic.

via TikTok

Menstrual taboos are as old as time and found across cultures. They've been used to separate women from men physically — menstrual huts are still a thing — and socially, by creating the perception that a natural bodily function is a sign of weakness.

Even in today's world women are deemed unfit for positions of power because some men actually believe they won't be able to handle stressful situations while mensurating.

"Menstruation is an opening for attack: a mark of shame, a sign of weakness, an argument to keep women out of positions of power,' Colin Schultz writes in Popular Science.

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Editor's Note: Upworthy earns a fee for products featured in this article. All products featured meet Upworthy's standards for ethics and quality.


Superfoods have been stealing the spotlight in the health and wellness scene for quite some time now. But did you know their magic isn't just confined to your smoothie bowls or salads? They're making a grand entrance into the beauty industry, with their nutrient-dense powers promising radiant, glowing skin from the outside in.

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Pop Culture

Woman puts a lighthearted touch on her divorce by 'soft-launching' it online

Sierra Gonsalves turned her separation into a game by spending months leaving subtle clues about her upcoming split. It was a fun way to help her cope.

@sierraontiktok/TikTok

"This was fun for me, and it helped me cope a little bit.”

We all know that divorce is a painful process. It can disrupt families, be a huge financial burden and cause emotional turmoil in a myriad of ways. It’s the second largest life stressor, right after the death of a spouse, and has its own similar stages of grief that last…well, however long they have to last. In her book “Divorce: Causes and Consequences,” psychologist K. Alison Clarke-Stewart says it can take up to four years to recover.

But can divorce actually be…fun?

A woman named Sierra Gonsalves seems to think so, and her unique, lighthearted approach to her own divorce is currently going viral online.
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