A new study has shown that children do not fully understand the factors that can cause cancer and some believe that behaving badly can cause the disease.
The poll, which was conducted by Macmillan Cancer Support, surveyed 500 children aged between nine and 16.
The research revealed that a 97 per cent of kids do no know that sunburn can cause cancer and 91 per cent did not know smoking can cause the disease.
Four per cent of children think that cancer can be caught from someone else while one in five think that it is always fatal.
Half of children do not know what cancer is but are still frightened of the word.
Many children do not know that smoking causes cancer
According to BBC, Katherine Donnelly from Macmillan Cancer Support said many parents think children should be protected from talking about cancer.
“In many ways, it’s still a bit of a taboo subject. Not all teachers feel confident about talking about it or know where to get the facts and figures from.
“The results showed that as children got older there was a slight increase in the number of those that had been taught about cancer, but not a hugely significant number,” she said.
Many children do not know that sunburn can cause skin cancer
“As cancer affects more and more people, the chances of children knowing someone with the condition grows – be that their grandparent, parent or friend. This can be really distressing and they may feel too worried to ask questions.
“Just over a quarter of children have been taught about cancer at school and this needs to improve,” she finished.
