Conflicted feelings here, too.
Is it incredibly sad that her condition went undiagnosed? Of course. Is it understandable?
Yes. As
@IcedLatte said, many cancer symptoms are ambiguous and can easily be attributed to obesity. I, too, live in a universal single-payer healthcare system and allocation of resources is an issue doctors must consider. Not to mention, weight loss is an apt recommendation for improvement of overall well being.
Something that the general public appears to be completely blind to, also, is the role obesity plays in major health issues. It’s confirmation bias on a massive scale.
The number of cancer cases linked to obesity is an estimated 20%. Some quotations from the study I’ve linked (De Pergola et al., 2013):
“...cohort studies have shown that breast cancer risk was lowered by 50% in women who intentionally underwent weight loss higher than 10 kg after menopause...”
“Also, an excess of weight in teenagers was linked to doubling the mortality risk of colon cancer in adulthood.”
“A Canadian case-control study has found that those men whose weight increased by more than 21 kg after reaching adulthood had a colorectal cancer risk 60% higher than those with a weight increase of 1–5 kg, and the association was even stronger after excluding those patients with rectal tumours [
26]. Endometrial cancer has also seemingly been shown to be directly correlated with weight gain during adulthood among Japanese women [
27]. Additionally, diet-induced weight loss reduces colorectal inflammation and cancer-related gene pathways in obese individuals [
28].“
A major risk factor for cancer is the presence of chronic inflammation, which can lead to oxidative cell damage, DNA mutation, and the formation of a “tumour environment” which allows vascularization and tumour metastasis. Considering obesity (any excess adipose tissue, really) is linked with chronic inflammation, the risk factors it presents for cancer - not to mention a whole host of other conditions - are quite clear.
The takeaway? Weight loss is an excellent health recommendation, at any age, for any overweight person. Should it eclipse more acute conditions like cancer? Of course not, but if we give in to this ridiculous fat positivity (not body positivity! It’s not body positivity if you’re destroying your body) movement, we’ll have an ever bigger public health crisis on our hands than we do already.