Media Release
October 29, 2001
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Fruit And Veg Key In Fight Against Cancer
It takes more than an apple a day to keep the doctor away, according to the Cancer Society which is lending its support
to the promotion of 5+ A Day Week, October 29 – November 2.
The 5+ A Day programme is designed to encourage all New Zealanders to eat and enjoy fresh fruit and vegetables. The 5+
means five or more servings of fresh fruit and vegetables a day.
The Cancer Society, as does the Ministry of Health, also recommends New Zealanders eat at least five servings of fruit
and vegetables each day – three vegetable and two fruit.
A Ministry of Health report, Our Health, Our Future: the Health of New Zealanders, published in 1999, attributed about
650 cancer deaths each year to not eating enough fruit and vegetables, says Cancer Society Health Promotion Manager
Carolyn Watts.
An international conference hosted by the World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer in
June this year presented preliminary results from the European Investigation into cancer and nutrition. It found strong
evidence of the link between not eating enough fruit and vegetables and some cancers.
“It is one of the largest studies looking at diet and cancer and involves nine European countries,” Ms Watts says.
The study found convincing or probable evidence that a high intake of fruit and vegetables had a decreasing risk of such
cancers as mouth, pharynx and larynx, oesophagus, lung, stomach, pancreas, colon, rectum, breast and bladder.
”The 1997 New Zealand Nutrition Survey – the latest figures available - showed that less than half the adult population
ate enough fruit and a third did not eat enough vegetables,” she says.
“The results from the Validation and Pre-testing of the Ministry of Health’s Nutrition Survey in 2000 were even more
concerning. Seventy-nine percent of school age children ate less than the recommended three servings of vegetables each
day and 41 percent ate less than two servings of fruit.”
Ms Watts says this finding adds even more importance to the 5+ a Day campaign of which the key target is primary school
children.
“If we can change people’s attitude to fruit and vegetables at a young age, there is a greater chance they will continue
good eating habits later in life.”
…ends/