Skin cancer is a disease close to my heart as my mum, Patricia Bishop, sadly died from the disease when I was 3 years old. That’s why I wanted to give publicity to Spot Check Month and encourage you to get a free skin check. This is also why, 6 years after moving here from England, my skin is still as Pommy white as it ever was!
Aussie media personalities Fifi Box, Emma Freedman, Hayden Quinn and Bondi Rescue lifeguards Greg Bishop, Tom Bunting and Brad Malyon, have teamed up for Invisible Zinc Spot Check Month – encouraging Australians to check their skin for bad spots this January. Launching with a nationwide competition, the month sees $150,000 worth of free skin cancer checks being offered at clinics around the country.
The 6 celebs got together to film an online video – which for every share on Facebook, $1 has been pledged to fund the Genome Project– to highlight the importance of skin checks and further aid the detection and prevention of skin cancer. The Genome Project is an ambitious national research program into the diagnosis and treatment of some types of skin cancer.
With skin cancer Australia’s most common cancer and the country having one of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world, skin health has never been so important than at the height of the Aussie summer. Having grown up by the beach, it’s something that Bondi Rescue lifeguard, Greg Bishop, is very aware of. “Being on the beach every day, you see people being pretty unsafe in the sun,” says Greg. “I’d say we’ve all underestimated the strength of the sun in Australia sometimes, so have almost certainly overexposed yourself at one time or another. That’s why I think it’s really important all Aussies have their skin checked regularly. Good spots can turn to bad spots without you noticing and the old adage is definitely true – prevention is better than a cure.”
Part of the key to helping ensure longterm skin health is via early skin cancer detection and prevention, which is why Invisible Zinc and MoleMap are providing 400 of the normally $375 full body skin cancer checks for free to Australians across the country this month. MoleMap is a leading skin cancer detection service with clinics throughout Australia, New Zealand and the USA. Register here for your chance to get one of the free checks.
For more information on sun safety, visit www.cancer.org.au
Comments
Penny says
Good reminder Jen. So sorry to hear you lost your mother so early in life xx
TheLoverList says
THANK YOU for this reminder!! I use to be vigilant about getting my skin professionally checked over once a year ….. and it saddens me to think I’ve let this very important health check slip by the wayside. Time to make that appointment so I/WE don’t become another statistic xx