Mo’ Than Just Moustaches

Movember’s About Raising Awareness for Men’s Health

NewsHélène Bauer — Published November 10, 2015 | Updated November 10, 2015 at 6:06am

This year for the first time since the Movember campaign launched 12 years ago, the foundation introduced a new way to raise awareness for men’s health—and this time, it includes women.

“From the team who brought back the moustache, MOVE is a new way to fundraise for men’s health,” reads the headline of the Movember webpage promoting this new campaign.

Movember started off as a fashion trend in Australia in 2003. Since then, it’s grown into a worldwide phenomenon to raise awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer, testicular cancer, but also mental and physical health.

The movement was created for men, and centered around men. The initial idea of growing a moustache meant that women were not intended to be involved in the discourse. Nevertheless, as years went on and the campaign blew up, Mo Brothas and Mo Sistas partnered to raise awareness for the cause.

Mo Brothers grew moustaches—they played with shapes, forms, and sizes. They created a Mo Space, a platform where they could post daily photos of their facial hair and raise money for the cause at the same time.

Although women were eventually encouraged to participate in the dialogue, they could only generally do so on a financial level through donations.

“Women were already participating in the Movember campaign for years, but many wanted to take part in it on a more concrete level,” said Andrée Paulin, Business Engagement Coordinator of the Movember Foundation in Montreal.

She has three brothers and believes it’s important for them to live in a society where they can be open about both their physical and mental health.

The MOVE campaign consists of doing just that—moving everyday of the month. It can be as simple as getting off the bus one stop early or doing yoga everyday, said Paulin. She is walking to and from work every day this month, which is about an hour-long walk one way.

At first glance, it looks like the set up is for men to grow moustaches and for women to exercise.

“This new campaign is not just for women, it’s also for men who can’t grow moustaches for whatever reason,” said Paulin. “Physical inactivity is a huge problem in our society today.”

Rest assured, moustaches aren’t out just yet—Movember enthusiasts are still going bigger, bushier, and more intricate than ever.

Jesse Galganov is on a semester abroad in Prague, but even from the Czech Republic, he is still showing support for Movember.

Galganov originally heard about the campaign in his last year of high school at Lower Canada College in Montreal. In 2012, alumni came to talk to his hockey team about the Movember campaign; one of the alumnus had lost their father to cancer.

The hockey coach had made a deal with the school to alleviate the school’s no facial hair rule during the month of November, if the students could raise $15 each, said Galganov. He didn’t just rise to the occasion, but went above and beyond what was expected, raising a total of $5,300.

Since that year, Galganov has raised over $16,000 for the cause and won “#1 Mo Space” for the best daily picture update.

“The moustache is unique in that it has a very strong power to create conversation,” said Galganov.

“The moustache is unique in that it has a very strong power to create conversation,” said Galganov.

But, prostate cancer research funded in part by Movember is not without its controversy.

“There is a strong cultural movement in rich countries to use screening to reduce [the number of deaths] caused by cancer,” said Dr. Fernand Turcotte, co-founder of the Social and Preventive Medicine Department at Université Laval and doctor at the Centre hospitalier universitaire de Québec.

Since 1971, there has been a rise of prostate cancer diagnosis due to the wide spread of a new blood test called prostate-specific antigen, or PSA for short.

Turcotte discussed the practice of screening for prostate cancer. Screening tests—like PSA for prostate cancer—help find some types of cancer before any signs or symptoms have even manifested in the body.

Turcotte said the screening test, leading to the “prevention” of this particular cancer, is doing more harm than good, taking the test as the ultimate authority for diagnosis. The Canadian Cancer Society’s website warns that the test cannot diagnose cancer, but will detect prostate issues which may be linked with the disease.

“PSA is not effective. Some of the disadvantages are the false positives detected by the test,” said André Beaulieu, Quebec spokesperson for the Canadian Cancer Society. Even if the test successfully detects the cancer, it doesn’t mean that the cancer warrants treatment, Beaulieu continued. According to him, the treatment is only necessary depending on health family history, age, and aggressiveness of the cancer.

Nevertheless—excluding non-melanoma skin cancers—prostate cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed among Canadian men. The survival rate after five years of living with the cancer is at 96 per cent, said Beaulieu. Having said that, prostate cancer is still the third leading cause of death from cancer in men in Canada, according to the CCS.

But the combination of a “false positive early screening” and the fact that prostate cancer manifests itself very slowly in the body causes an alarming amount over-diagnosis of the cancer in our society, said Turcotte.

The CCS confirmed there is an ongoing debate around screening methods for prostate cancer. Beaulieu said the CCS doesn’t support the PSA testing, however, it recommends each male over the age of 50 to talk to their doctor about prostate cancer.

The CCS pointed out that side effects of the screening can actually be harmful, including incontinence, erectile dysfunction, and aggressive bowel movements.

“Add to this, the uncertainty about the prognostic safety of the intervention and [you have] all the ingredients capable to ruin the quality of life,” Turcotte said.

“A man will die of other natural causes before dying of prostate cancer,” Beaulieu said. He also added that in most cases, prostate cancer is not deadly in men under the age of 85.

Turcotte concluded by saying that studies show the reduction of mortality attributable to prostate cancer tipped off early by the PSA screening is null. “We have known this for six years and it is a scandal that we have not stopped this circus,” he said.

Since its beginnings in 2003, the two moustache-growing Aussies that started the Movember foundation have nurtured a worldwide discourse around men’s health, for good and for bad—raising awareness means allowing a healthy debate to take place from both sides of the issue.

This November, Mo Brothers and Mo Sistas, grow a moustache or get moving, but most importantly, get informed about prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and mental health.