• Quizzes
• Smoke is Poison
• Smoking and tobacco
• Alcohol
• Diet and healthy eating
  • Test your knowledge
  • Foods, nutrients and cancer
  • Food controversies
  • The EPIC study
  • How do we know?
  • Five a day
  • Eating habits
  • Healthy meal ideas
  • Look at the labels
  • On a budget
  • Tips for parents
• Obesity and weight
• Exercise and activity
• SunSmart
• Body awareness
• Cancer screening
• Signs and symptoms
• Family history
• Hormones
• Harmful substances
• Cancer controversies
• How do we know?
• Who do we believe?
• What is risk?
• Worried?
• Reduce the Risk
• Open Up to Mouth Cancer
• Links

Diet, healthy eating and cancer

Experts think that about a quarter of all cancer deaths are caused by unhealthy diets and obesity. Our diet influences our risk of many cancers, including cancers of the bowel, stomach, mouth, foodpipe and breast.

You can reduce your cancer risk by eating a healthy, balanced diet that is high in fibre, fruit and vegetables, and low in red and processed meat and saturated fat.

This section contains more information on how the things we eat affect our risk of cancer. And we have lots of helpful advice for eating healthily and reducing your risk.

Diet and cancer

• Test your knowledge of the links between diet and cancer with our online quiz.
• In the Food, nutrients and cancer section, you can read about how different nutrients and types of food affect your risk of cancer.
• We often hear conflicting news stories saying that particular foods reduce or increase the risk of cancer. Find out the truth behind some of the more common food controversies.
• Cancer Research UK helps to fund the largest ever study of diet and cancer – the EPIC study. Read about why EPIC is so important, and some of its first results.
• Are you interested in finding out the evidence behind our healthy eating messages? Have a look at the How do we know? page.

Healthy eating tips

• Eating at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day as part of a healthy diet can help to reduce your risk of some cancers. We’ve got some top tips for getting your Five a day and details on what counts as a portion.
• The way you eat can affect your health as much as what you eat and how much you eat. Read about how you can develop healthier Eating habits.
• You can find some quick and easy tips for eating a healthy, balanced diet in the Healthy meal ideas section, conveniently organised by mealtime.
• Looking and understanding food labels while you're shopping can help you make healthier choices. Read our tips for understanding Food labels.
• Eating healthily doesn’t have to stretch your wallet. Check out our tips for balancing your diet On a budget.
• Parents know that getting children to eat healthily can be especially challenging. Have a look at our Tips for parents section for more advice.

Our diet in the UK

Despite being bombarded by eating advice, the UK diet still leaves a lot to be desired. We are particularly bad at eating fruit and vegetables. Less than a quarter of people aged 19-64 eat the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables per day.

Children eat even more unhealthily than adults in the UK. This is why there is a variety of government programmes looking at encouraging healthy eating in schools.

Diet and other diseases

Eating a healthy diet can reduce your risk of cancer. But it will also help to protect against other conditions such as heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke and diabetes, as well as improve your overall health and wellbeing.

Ten Top Tips

Cancer Research UK and Weight Concern have joined forces to develop Ten Top Tips for a healthy weight, as part of our Reduce the Risk campaign. These tips have been designed to fit into your daily life and are based on the best scientific evidence. Find out about the Ten Top Tips and ways of sticking to them on our Reduce the Risk site.