| Be at a healthy weight. |
Ensure that body weight during childhood and adolescence projects toward the lower end of the healthy adult BMI range. Keep your weight as low as you can within the healthy range throughout life. Avoid weight gain (measured as body weight or waist circumference) throughout adulthood.
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| Be physically active. |
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| Eat a diet rich in whole grains, vegetables, fruit, and beans. |
Consume a diet that provides at least 30 g/d of fiber (based on the AOAC methods) from food sources. Include in most meals foods containing whole grains, nonstarchy vegetables, fruit, and pulses (legumes) such as beans and lentils. Eat a diet high in all types of plant foods including at least 5 portions or servings (at least 400 g or 15 oz in total) of a variety of nonstarchy vegetables and fruit every day. If you eat starchy roots and tubers as staple foods, eat nonstarchy vegetables, fruit, and pulses regularly, too, if possible.
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| Limit consumption of “fast foods” and other processed foods high in fat, starches, or sugars. |
Limit consumption of processed foods high in fat, starches, or sugars—including fast foods (readily available convenience foods that tend to be energy dense and are often consumed frequently and in large portions); many preprepared dishes, snacks, bakery foods, and desserts; and confections (candy).
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| Limit consumption of red and processed meat. |
If you eat red meat, limit consumption to no more than ∼3 portions per wk. Three portions is equivalent to ∼350–500 g (12–18 oz) cooked weight of red meat. The term “red meat” refers to beef, veal, pork, lamb, mutton, horse, and goat. Consume very little, if any, processed meat, which refers to meat that has been transformed through salting, curing, fermentation, smoking, or other processes to enhance flavor or improve preservation.
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| Limit consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks. |
Drink mostly water and unsweetened drinks. Sugar-sweetened drinks are defined as liquids that are sweetened by adding free sugars, such as sucrose, high fructose corn syrup, and sugars naturally present in honey, syrups, fruit juices, and fruit juice concentrates. This includes, among others, sodas, sports drinks, energy drinks, sweetened waters, cordials, barley water, and coffee- and tea-based beverages with sugars or syrups added. This does not include version of these drinks which are “sugar free” or sweetened only with artificial sweeteners.
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| Limit alcohol consumption. |
Consuming alcoholic drinks is a cause of several cancers. For cancer prevention, it's best not to drink alcohol. There is no threshold for the level of consumption below which there is no increase in the risk of at least some cancers.
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| Do not use supplements for cancer prevention. |
A dietary supplement is a product intended for ingestion that contains a “dietary ingredient” intended to achieve levels of consumption of micronutrients or other food components beyond what is usually achievable through diet alone. High-dose supplements are not recommended for cancer prevention—aim to meet nutritional needs through diet alone. For most people, consumption of the right food and drink is more likely to protect against cancer than supplements.
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| For mothers: breastfeed your baby, if you can. |
Breastfeeding is good for both mother and baby. This recommendation aligns with the advice of the WHO, which recommends infants are breastfed exclusively for 6 mo, then up to 2 y of age or beyond alongside appropriate complementary foods.
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| After a cancer diagnosis: follow the recommendations, if you can. |
Check with your health professional, who can take individual circumstances into account. All cancer survivors should receive nutritional care and guidance on physical activity from trained professionals. Unless otherwise advised, and if you can, all cancer survivors are advised to follow the recommendations as far as possible after the acute stage of treatment.
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