“Wear pink to the football game!” “Wear pink to the football game!” You’ve been told to wear pink in October on Fridays a lot because October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. 

The famous pink ribbon honors both breast cancer survivors and victims. According to the nonprofit organization Breast Cancer Action, in the early 1990s, Charlotte Hayley, a 68-year-old woman, started making peach-colored ribbons in her home by hand. Her grandmother, sister, and daughter all had breast cancer. Hayley used these ribbons as a way to raise awareness of how little cancer funding went to breast cancer, and the ribbons became so widespread that Estée Lauder and Self Magazine wanted to have her ribbon. Hayley said no because she thought that it would be too commercialized. Self Magazine eventually took the ribbon and changed the peach color to pink, symbolizing healing, soothing, and comforting. 

The National Cancer Institute says cancer is a genetic disease, specifically caused by a change in one’s genes that affects how cells grow and divide. The body usually eliminates cells with damaged genes before they turn cancerous, but this ability is slowed as humans age. As for breast cancer, the Susan G. Komen Foundation says breast cancer can grow slowly and for long periods of time, or be more aggressive and grow faster. The World Health Organization (WHO) states that 0.5%-1% of breast cancers occur in men, which makes breast cancer dangerous to both men and women.

“Wearing pink means a lot [to me] because my mom had breast cancer,” said Natalie Mankarious, a ninth grader at Rancho Cucamonga High School. “So it’s cool to see people showing support.”

According to the World Health Organization, 2.3 million women were diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020 and 7.8 million women alive had breast cancer. According to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, approximately 297,790 women will get breast cancer in the United States in 2023. Globally, 685,000 people have died from it. These statistics make breast cancer the most prevalent cancer in the world, over lung cancer and colon cancer.

Knowing about breast cancer helps you understand the importance of October as the breast cancer awareness month. The National Breast Cancer Foundation donates to treating and ending breast cancer, and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation is advancing its most promising treatments and research. Wearing pink shows support, but donating does too.