Heart health is a major component to ensuring a long sustained life. According to the CDC, 610,000 people die of heart disease in the United States every year–that’s 1 in every 4 deaths (2017). Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women. Heart health is not only a concern here in the United States, but all over the world.
Seeing this alarming statistic and looking into my own life experiences dealing with heart health, I can distinguish the self-susceptibility,severity. Seeing the impact it has in my family, I am able to address from my perception the threat this poses to my own health problems (Cottrell, 2018).
Because of this, my cue to action includes: family health, friends influence, and education on proper nutrition. These influences has pushed me to want to make changes to my heart health and make the effort to change my life style.
Looking into the perceived susceptibility/ severity, I am able to identify that my family’s heart issues can be seen as a genetic problem because not only my grandfather died of a heart disease, but many other family members I know suffer heart disease. My dad had to get a cyst placed on his heart. He almost suffered a heart attack, but luckily he survived. Seeing how much this impacts my family, I am worried that I will be drawn to this fate if I do not take measures and steps. Luckily we have methods that prevent heart disease through eating heart healthy meals and regular cardiovascular exercises.
This severity alarms a perceived threat in which if i do not follow proper heart health guidelines, I will most likely follow the same path as most of my family members. Not only genetics, but just not making the effort to ensure my heart strength, I am increasing my chances of heart disease.
Looking into the intrapersonal level of eating a heart healthy diet, I can understand that it is my own doing whether or not I can live on being healthy. If I continue with the behavior that I am invincible and just leave fate to let what happens to my life, then I will inevitably be lead to many health problems later on in my life and suffer. To change my behavior I need to face reality and understand the impact it has on my family and understand why they were not able to prevent it. Speaking with a lot of my relatives who reside in Bangladesh, a lot of them face the obstacles of not understanding what to do for their heart health. Basic steps of preventative measures was the only way to help themselves at the time such as taking walks, cut down on salt intake, and stay away from fried food. For them, education was their barrier so clearly I have no excuse to not take measures for myself. I need to be more proactive with reading nutrition labels, know what I am putting in my body and find nutrients to consume that is good for heart health. Aside from eating healthy, I must also make an effort to exercise regularly. Just simply taking thirty minutes of my day and be active can do so much for heart strength.
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References:
Cottrell, R. R., Girvan, J. T., Seabert, D., Spear, C., & McKenzie, J. F. (2018). Principles and foundations of health promotion and education(7th ed.). NY, NY: Pearson.
Heart Disease. (2017, November 28). Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/facts.htm
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