By Tara Nykyforiak
Photos by Vaikunthe Banerjee
When the discussion of women’s health comes up, breast cancer is the automatic go-to concern for most people. This makes sense, considering one in eight women will develop breast cancer in their lifetime. However, this isn’t the greatest risk women face. Heart disease affects one out of every three women, according to Time magazine, and not enough education and awareness is being spread to inform of this.
According to the Heart & Stroke Foundation, one person dies of heart disease or stroke every seven minutes in Canada, accounting for 29 per cent of all deaths in our country (69, 703 deaths a year). Further, heart disease accounted for 29.7 per cent of all female deaths in Canada in 2008. And what is its financial toll? Altogether, heart disease costs the Canadian economy more than $20.9 billion annually.
In the past, it was common for people to approach heart disease dichotomously, teaching that men and women exhibit different symptoms. This is untrue, and causes confusion that hinders people from knowing what signs to look for.
The most common sign in both sexes is chest pain and discomfort. Other symptoms such as shortness of breath, light-headedness, nausea, sweating, and heaviness of limbs, vary between individuals, not sexes.
These warning signs should be ingrained in the minds of everyone, starting at the grade school level. I, for one, only ever learned what a heart attack and stroke are, but was never educated on what signs to look for in myself or others.
In terms of prevention education, there is also a lot of room for improvement. The list of risk factors a woman can control (obesity, the lack of physical activity, high blood cholesterol, smoking, excessive drinking, and more) outweigh those that she cannot (family history, ethnicity, sex, age) and of these, appropriate lifestyle choices can and should be adopted during childhood to best prevent heart disease as an adult.
Childhood obesity rates are higher now than ever before. The Childhood Obesity Foundation states that 30 per cent of Canadian children and youth are overweight or obese. This rate is double what it was in 1978, and demonstrates just how real the threat of heart disease really is.
The Participaction campaign is a step in the right direction, because it aims to get young people more active. Its slogan, “bring back play”, encourages parents and children to go outdoors and make physical activity a priority. I guess I’m not the only one who’s noticed the lack of children riding bikes and playing in the park.
However, with as much as 63 per cent of a child’s free time spent being sedentary, it’s obvious that this easy, fun, and cheap preventative measure of heart disease has failed to be properly promoted. Moreover, active lifestyles have been put on the back burner for far too long if obesity rates have risen to what they are today, and with heart disease claiming the number of lives that it is.
By targeting the youngest demographics, preventative measures can be most effectively instilled, because adopting healthy lifestyles — like learning a second language — is much easier when one is young.
Additionally, education of the signs to look for will create quicker response times in life-threatening situations, and can help get individuals to seek out medical intervention before a heart attack even strikes
