1. Does anyone in your family have breast cancer? When answering this question, please consider your mami and your papi’s side of the family, abuelitos y abuelitas, tios, tias and adult primos. It is also important to know how old they were when they were diagnosed. If there are more than two family members with breast cancer, especially on the same side of the family, this may mean a higher risk of breast cancer for you.
2. How old were you with your first baby? Women who have never had children, or who had their child after the age of 35 have a slightly higher risk of breast cancer.
3. How much do you weigh? I will not tell you how much I weigh, but I put myself in the category of gordita. Those you who are like me are also at a slightly higher risk of breast cancer. We store and produce hormones in our fat, so the extra hormone puts us at higher risk. The good news is, we are in control of this risk! All we have to do is lose weight! No more Oscar’s Puffy Tacos…
4. Are there any other cancers in your family? Does anyone have uterine, ovarian, colon, pancreatic or prostate cancer? These cancers may also may you higher risk for breast cancer–it’s a genetic thing.
5. Do you have chi-chis? The bottom line is this:we are women and breast cancer is the most common type of cancer we get. Any woman can get breast cancer, even if you didn’t answer yes to any of the above questions.
One in eight of us will get breast cancer at some point in our lives; mammogram can find a breast cancer when it so small you can’t feel it. As Mexican-American women, our risk for being diagnosed with breast cancer at a later stage–there are probably lots of reasons for that. Let’s change that by knowing what our risk is and changing those things we can change, like our gordita status and getting mammograms.
