<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"Here&amp;#39;s a story you don&amp;#39;t hear every day: Miss America contestant Allyn Rose, 24, was only 16 when she lost her mother to breast cancer. Allyn discovered she was a carrier of the same chromosomal disease her mother had, and she&amp;#39;s decided to take a radical step to lower her chances of developing the disease: She&amp;#39;ll undergo a double mastectomy.\n\nSource: allynrose.tumblr.com via Rachel on Pinterest\n&amp;quot;My mom was diagnosed at 27. That&amp;#39;s three years away from me,&amp;quot; Rose told People. &amp;quot;I&amp;#39;m not going to let my fear of losing this part of my femininity stop me from living.&amp;quot;\nSince several of the women in her family have passed away from breast cancer, Rose, a model/paralegal, decided to be proactive.\nCan you imagine being a beauty queen and making the choice? It must have been hard, but she&amp;#39;s not the first woman in the spotlight to take this step. Sharon Osbourne, Christina Applegate and Giuliana Rancic have all undergone preventative mastectomies and chronicled their breast cancer experiences.\nThe surgery won&amp;#39;t stop Rose from representing Washington D.C. in the Miss America pageant on January 12. If Rose does walk away with the crown, she&amp;#39;s planning the surgery for January 2014, after she completes her duties. If not, she will schedule the surgery for next June.\n&amp;quot;Breasts don&amp;#39;t define your life,&amp;quot; she said. &amp;quot;I&amp;#39;m choosing life over beauty. I&amp;#39;m choosing to remove something that&amp;#39;s so iconic to my womanhood.&amp;quot;\nThat&amp;#39;s why Allyn is our health star of the week. I&amp;#39;m loving this--are you? Have any of you elected to have the preventitve surgery after learning you were high-risk? (That makes you a health star of the week, too!)"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/story/health-star-of-the-week-24-yea>