In Touch: Wearing Pink – and Living Well

It’s a fall color change of sorts. October arrives, and so does pink, the bright sign of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

It’s not only a time to raise awareness about this disease — the cancer that affects more women in America than any other.  It’s also a time to honor those who have survived it and to support everyone who has been affected by it.

That’s why I’d like to invite everyone to join me Tuesday, Oct. 21 and wear pink to show our support for our friends, colleagues, loved ones and everyone who has battled, or is battling, breast cancer.

Tuesday will be a fitting time to show our support. It is also the day that we will present our annual update to the Board on our Live Well San Diego initiative, which we created to improve the health and well-being of all county residents.

When we started Live Well San Diego in 2010, a key guide was the 3-4-50 principle. Those numbers represent that three behaviors – poor nutrition, lack of exercise and tobacco use – contribute to the four diseases – cancer, heart disease/stroke, type 2 diabetes and respiratory illness like asthma – that cause more than half of all deaths in our county. The number one killer locally is cancer.

Live Well San Diego proposes that we can all help ourselves lead healthier lives by attacking those three behaviors — by eating better, exercising more and stopping smoking.

As science makes progress fighting and curing cancer, we will stay committed through Live Well San Diego to promoting choices than can help prevent people from getting the disease.

In the meantime, I’d like to welcome all of you to join me Tuesday and “go pink” to show our support!