KNOWLEDGE of a link between obesity and cancer is worryingly low in Wales, according to the charity Cancer Research UK.

Almost 75 per cent of people in Wales surveyed for the charity found that, as well as a general ignorance about obesity and cancer, more than three-quarters (78 per cent) of those asked did not know obesity was linked specifically to ovarian cancer.

And more than two thirds (70 per cent) were unaware of a link with breast cancer, while more than half (54 per cent) did not know pancreatic cancer was linked to obesity.

Fifty-eight per cent know of a link with bowel cancer, and 54 per cent linked obesity with liver cancer.

Being overweight or obese is the single biggest preventable cause of cancer after smoking and is linked to an estimated 18,100 cancer cases a year in the UK.

Being overweight or obese is linked to 10 types of cancers, including breast, bowel, womb and oesophageal.

The most recent Welsh Health Survey (WHS) classified 59 per cent of adults in Wales as overweight or obese. Almost a quarter (24 per cent) are obese.

Gwent continues to be an obesity and overweight hotspot, with the WHS revealing Torfaen to have Wales’ equal third highest amount of people who admitted to being overweight or obese, with Caerphilly, Blaenau Gwent and Newport equal fifth highest.

A recent Cancer Research UK/UK Health Forum report estimated that if current trends of being overweight and obese continued, there would be a further 670,000 cancer cases during the next 20 years.

Breast and bowel cancers remain among the four most common cancers in Wales.

The incidence of the former is on the rise among women in Gwent, while the bowel cancer rate for men and women in Gwent has slowed.

“Around a quarter of all adults in Wales are estimated to be obese, and this has a real impact on their risk of developing cancer,” said Alison Birkett, Cancer Research UK spokesman for Wales.

“Eating a healthy balanced diet and becoming more active can help people to keep a healthy weight.

“And encouraging children and teenagers to do the same can help them keep to a healthy weight later on in life.”

Alison Cox, director of prevention at Cancer Research UK, said it is very concerning that cancer is not at the forefront of people’s minds when talking about obesity.

“Few in Wales understand that excess weight increases the risk of several cancers, including some of the most common such as breast cancer,” she said.

She added that it is the responsibility of governments to inform the public of the link, and also to take action to tackle the obesity epidemic, starting with the health of the nation’s children.