CHART topping girl band Little Mix, the Xtra Factor’s Caroline Flack and singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor have urged Hampshire women to join Cancer Research UK’s Race For Life – by posing for these defiant photographs.

Showing the girls with powerful messages painted onto different parts of their bodies, the photographs were taken by celebrity snapper Jason Bell.

The gutsy messages, including ‘Beat it cancer’, ‘Jog on cancer!’ and ‘In your face cancer’, capture the fighting spirit of this year’s Race for Life event series which takes in Southampton and Winchester.

Sophie Ellis-Bextor said: “Cancer has sadly touched my family, like so many others, and that is why I am so proud to be supporting Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life this year.

“I’d urge every woman out there to send a defiant message to cancer, by signing up to a Race for Life event now.

If everyone gets involved by taking part and fundraising I believe that, one day, we will beat this awful disease.”

Little Mix said: “We are incredibly proud to be supporting Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life and helping the charity to fight a disease that affects every single one of us in some way.

“Please join us and send a message to cancer, to tell it that it’s going down!

Everyone who runs, walks, watches or fundraises at Race for Life is so important in helping to beat cancer.

“So, come on girls, what are you waiting for? Sign up now!”

Caroline Flack said: “Sadly cancer is something that unites everyone, so we all need to join in the fight against cancer and tell it where to go!

“Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life gives all women, regardless of who they are and where they are from, the opportunity to look cancer in the face and say ‘watch out!’ “All you ladies out there, please get summer and sign up to an event to help make a real difference and show cancer that we mean business!”

Jason Bell added: “With these images I wanted to visually capture the defiant spirit of this year’s Race for Life, which is all about telling cancer exactly what we really think of it.

“The bold messages, which are scrawled across the women’s bodies, will hopefully inspire other women to send their most powerful message to cancer by signing up to this year’s Race for Life and helping Cancer Research UK to beat all 200 types of cancer”.

Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life, in partnership with Tesco, is an inspiring women-only series of events which raises millions of pounds every year to help defeat cancer by funding life-saving research.

Every day, around 120 people are diagnosed with cancer in the south east and predictions show the number diagnosed in the UK is set to rise steeply by 2030.

Cancer Research UK’s work is funded entirely by the public. Last year the charity spent more than £4 million in Southampton on some of the UK’s leading scientific and clinical research.

Money raised through Race for Life allows Cancer Research UK’s doctors, nurses and scientists to advance research which is helping to save lives throughout the south east.

This year’s events are at the Garrison Ground and University of Winchester Stadium on Sunday, June 9 and at Southampton Common on Sunday, July 14.

To enter Race for Life today go to raceforlife.org or call 0845 600