Movember at Malvern Instruments

After last year’s resounding success, the men of Malvern Instruments are once again sprouting moustaches and transforming the company into Movern Instruments.

Along with our Mo Bro colleagues from around the world, we are putting aside personal discomfort by growing a slug for charity and raising funds and awareness of prostate cancer, testicular cancer and mental health issues.

“Movern” Instruments 2012

Each Movern Mo Bro will become a walking, talking billboards for the 30 days of November and through their actions and words they will raise awareness, by prompting private and public conversation around the often ignored issue of men’s health. Us men tend to find talking about health problems, especially of a bodily nature, an embarrassing subject, even with a GP. The simple fact is that it doesn’t need to be, especially when you take the following into consideration:

• The average life expectancy for men in the UK is four years less than women
• More than 1 in 3 people will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime
• Prostate, colon, lung and breast cancers account for over half of the cancer diagnosis in the UK
• Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men in the UK. Over 40,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer ever year and there are 250,000 men currently living with the disease
• 1 in 9 men in the UK are likely to face prostate cancer in their lifetime. This is comparable to the 1 in 9 women that are estimated to get breast cancer
• 2,209 men in the UK were diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2009
• 47% of testicular cancer cases occur in men under 35 years and over 90% occur in men under 55 years
• 1 in 4 British adults experience at least one diagnosable mental health problem in any one year
• Since 1996, the number of people diagnosed with diabetes in the UK has increased from 1.4 million to 2.9 million
• 42% of men were classified as overweight in 2010 (in England) compared to 32% women
• Obese men are 5 times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes and 3 times more likely to develop cancer of the colon
• In Great Britain, 31% drink more alcohol than the advised weekly limit of 21 units

So far 16 Malvern employees have signed up by joining Team Movern and we have raised over £236. You can follow our progress the team’s Movember page:

http://uk.movember.com/team/1134241

As an added incentive, this year we will be pulling out all of the stops and the best Mo will win a special prize… oooooh!

Remember: Swift… Silent… Hairy.