Fried Chicken for the Cure?

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Apr. 24, 2010

Indeed, there is no direct link between eating fried chicken and a higher cancer risk, says Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health.

"But there is definitely a link between being overweight and breast cancer and eating fast food typically contributes to being overweight," he adds, "so I would say it's a mixed message."

Fried Chicken for Women's Health --What the Cluck?

While hocking fried chicken to fight cancer has raised a few eyebrows, the fact remains that Komen's style of pink promotion has been responsible for $1.5 billion in breast cancer funding to date -- funds that Rader says have brought awareness, better care, and top-of-line research to millions of women nationwide.

KFC Buckets Go Pink To Raise Awareness of Breast Cancer

KFC

Kentucky Fried Chicken has gone pink to raise... View Full Caption

"People say 'oh, we've had enough pink, we have enough awareness,'" but there are still women who are dangerously uninformed when it comes to breast cancer prevention and treatment, Rader says. "This is an opportunity to extend that education to an awful lot of people."

Rader says that Komen would of course never partner with cigarette or alcohol companies, but fried chicken is a more complicated issue.

"One end of the spectrum would be promoting cancer fundraising with 50 cents back on each package of cigarettes," Willett says, "but this isn't quite that."

"It would be nice to promote it in a way that was related to positive eating," he says, "but it's still a great cause."

And if people are going to buy fast food anyway, Rock says, "at least if they buy it in a pink bucket, something good will come out of it."

Still, for all the progress and all the research, the number of women dying of breast cancer has not really gone down, she says.

"We're doing something wrong [in our prevention efforts], and one of the things we're doing wrong is how we eat."