February is Heart Month, a good time to raise awareness of what we can do to keep our hearts healthy. – and sorry, its not Valentine’s Day chocolates!
Heart disease affects approximately 2.4 million Canadian adults, and is the second leading cause of death in Canada. The primary ways we can reduce the risk through lifestyle choices are: not smoking, dietary choices, getting enough exercise and enough sleep, stress reduction, as well as monitoring blood pressure and cholesterol levels. There are Government programs and partnerships to encourage and support Canadians to maintain healthy lifestyle choices. These programs are to help prevent chronic disease in all ages in communities across Canada and include: Run to Quit, Carrot Rewards, APPLE Schools and Kid Food Nation, in communities across Canada.
There is also more resources available concerning healthier food choices. The Healthy Eating Strategy outlines how food ingredient labeling, including sugars and food colours; reducing sodium in foods; eliminating industrially produced trans fat; and restricting marketing to children., can help with disease prevention.
Canada’s Physical Activity Guide recommends that to keep it simple, you can aim for 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week of moderate exercise. That includes any activity that gets you moving around and breaking a slight sweat. However, the half hour of exercise doesn’t go very far if you are sedentary for most of the other time. If you are sitting a lot throughout the day, you should aim to get up and move around frequently.
Beyond healthy choices, cardiovascular disease is also influenced by biological and other risk factors. Making one small change however, can make a big difference.