The Heart Truth®: Take #RelaytheRed Pledge
“”The Heart Truth starts with you. Talk with your doctor, find out your risk for heart disease, and take action today to lower it.” NHBLI/The Heart Truth
Join The Heart Truth®: Take the #RelaytheRed Pledge
Join The Heart Truth®: Take the #RelaytheRed Pledge
What steps are you taking towards YOUR good health? Recently, I was approached on behalf of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s (NHLBI)The Heart Truth® program to participate in The Heart Truth campaign as an official ambassador for the #RelaytheRed social media activation during National Women’s Health Week #NWHW)(May 10-16, 2015). Heart disease impacts us all but, research has shown that it disproportionately affects women of color; African American and Hispanic women, especially women between the ages of 40 to 60, are at a higher risk for heart disease. It is the goal of NHLBI/The Heart Truth campaign to get us all on board towards developing heart healthy habits: #4OurHeart.
The centerpiece of The Heart Truth is the Red Dress®, which was introduced as the national symbol for women and heart disease awareness in 2002 by the NHLBI … join and tell five other women to learn more about heart disease and how they can prevent it. (Cheryl Hines) NHBLI/The Heart Truth
Join The Heart Truth®: Take the #RelaytheRed Pledge
The Heart Truth program objectives are six fold:
Primary Objectives
- Increase awareness that heart disease is the leading cause of death among women.
- Increase awareness of the risk factors for heart disease.
- Increase awareness that having risk factors can lead to heart disease, disability, and death.
- Increase perceived susceptibility to heart disease (e.g. an individual’s perception she may be at personal risk for heart disease).
- Increase the number of women who intend to take action to prevent heart disease and/or control its risk factors.
Secondary Objective
- Increase the frequency of conversations between women and their health care provider about risk for heart disease and importance of taking preventive action.
“Join us on this national movement and help us give a wakeup call to all women about the importance of knowing their risk for heart disease, the #1 killer of women.” NHLBI/The Heart Truth
Join The Heart Truth®: Take the #RelaytheRed Pledge
DAY 1: Sunday – Renew your/Make a commitment to live a heart healthy lifestyle.
The program also wishes to encourage women to take important steps to control their heart health, and therefore improve their overall health by participating in the following simple but important Relay the Red heart health steps for the week. The Relay the Red pledge asks all women to commit doing one heart-healthy behavior each day during National Women’s Health Week; Let’s all commit to take a week of Heart Healthy Actions. In addition, we are to relay these behaviors to other women and inspire them to take steps toward a healthier heart. Start today on Mother’s Day with Step 1 and the follow the other steps daily. I will post graphics/reminders daily so we can all be on board.
- Sunday – Renew your/Make a commitment to a heart healthy lifestyle.
- Monday – Schedule a visit to the doctor to check your heart health and call a relative to do the same.
- Tuesday – Prepare a heart healthy meal today and share the recipe with a friend.
- Wednesday – Take a 20 minute walk at lunch or after work with a co-worker.
- Thursday – Take 10 minutes to de-stress: meditate, practice deep breathing, or stretch. Then, text or email a family member and remind them to make time to do the same.
- Friday – Share the risk factors for heart disease with a loved one.
- Saturday – You successfully “Relayed the Red”, Reward yourself with something you enjoy and share with others.
Join The Heart Truth®: Take the #RelaytheRed Pledge – Happy Mother’s Day
As you enjoy the activities around this special day, don’t forget to share this vital information with loved ones and pledge to take definitive steps for your own health too. Have a very HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!
More Below!
“Materials Available: Make a difference in women’s lives by spreading The Heart Truth® in your community.” NHBLI/The Heart Truth
Join The Heart Truth®: Take the #RelaytheRed Pledge
Each day, The Heart Truth will share pledge images and supplemental content on our social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest). As an ambassador, I am taking the Relay the Red pledge and will share updates of actions I take on Facebook and Twitter. They have provided all the graphics developed for this activation, and I will add tidbits on my effort on Facebook and by writing more about the Relay the Red pledge and my journey on this blog by the end of the week. Join Us and Have a Happy Mother’s Day!
For More: Women’s Lives & Issues
Positive Motivation Tip: A healthy heart is a happy heart. Make Mother’s Day the start of healthier habits.
PHOTO CREDITS/ATTRIBUTIONS: All Other Photos via The Heart Truth or from my Personal Collection.
Until Next Time…
Ask. Believe. Receive. ©
Elizabeth Obih-Frank
Mirth and Motivation
Positive Kismet
Am I at risk for heart disease? Probably although my doctor hasn’t said anything and yes I go for regular checkups because of diabetes (which I managed to get under control with diet). Women don’t usually think of women having heart disease-it is perceived as being a men’s disease–nothing could be further from the truth!
I’m glad you are pondering this and that you will take action… We all need to. 🙂
this is a great cause and great information. iI worry about heart disease since my grandmother had several strokes in her sixties.
My doctor keeps bothering me to have a blood test and I don’t want to. I know I should especially after reading this. Thanks!
I had a cardio-vascular check recently and apparently I’m in really good health!
Good for you. Keep it up! <3
Wow, this is awesome. Congrats. This sounds like a really fabulous campaign and it’s great to keep people aware! A Healthy Heart is definately a Happy heart!
Thanks for sharing. I love the daily activities. It helps when it is broken down.
very nice campaign. people have to be aware about all this things. and we need to do regulur check up too 🙂
Heart health is always on my mind but that doesn’t mean I necessarily take action. I love this little week long set of tasks to actually take some action towards a healthy heart. Thanks for sharing, I am going to do this.
So important to keep a Healthy Heart. It all starts with a healthy diet.
Healthy heart is happy heart, a remind that our health is so important and we should work on making our life better, probably give up on some worries, exercise and eat healthy food.
This is a great commitments, we are committed to this too as a family!
The stats are awful, and I totally believe them to be true. We recently had a huge heart scare with someone in our family that was too young (or so we thought!) to have a heart attack! Thankfully it’s a semi-happy ending over here. 🙂
I’m glad it turned out well… We are never too young or too old… TY!
This is a great challenge. Many people and women especially are not aware about the heart diseases. Thanks for doing this
My family has an extended history of heart disease so this is great reminder. Thanks for sharing this, I’m definitely going to try some of the challenges this week!
Great! I’m glad you stopped by to read the post. 🙂
Ive recently started paying more attention to my health, trying to get out more during the day and exercise a little longer 🙂 I’ve always been working on changing my diet accordingly but it’s no easy task. Thank you for the great share!
Such a great cause and a great campaign, not many of us really think about heart disease and other diseases until either we get them or a loved one does but I think being proactive like this will definitely save someone’s life if not our own. Great post.
I’m all for this especially so because heart disease runs in the family. It’s not an easy undertaking but sheer discipline and keeping oneself motivated helps a lot.
Good for you. Keep up the good work and thanks for sharing this awesome campaign today!
Thank you Robin. Appreciated!
What a great post. Definitely reminds us all to think a bit more about our health!
I have a super healthy heart but its always good to raise awareness. Our hearts play a huge role in our overall health.
The tips are really helpful. Heart attack is a silent killer and we as women needs to take good care of our hearts.
A very important topic to raise awareness about. And my favorite type of exercise is simply walking for long periods of time.
Kudos to you for being proactive. I am a firm believer in knowing everything you can to understand your body, your families history and what you can do to take care of yourself.
Kudos to you for being proactive. I am a firm believer in taking the steps to take care of yourself. Knowledge is power.
Awesome relay and I do hope there will be plenty of people who is going to be involve in this amazing campaign
I love this campaign! We need to take better care of ourselves!
It is so important for all of us women to take care of our health, especially since our heart may show signs of distress differently than men’s hearts. Thanks for sharing.
This is such an amazing post, I absolutely love the message behind it. As a woman in my 50’s, I know all too well the importance of a healthy heart. I hope this information gets to more women out there!
Thanks for sharing this. This is such an important conversation. I’ve recently replaced butter with olive and coconut oil, I’ve cut back on processed sugar and am walking for an hour everyday.
I try to stay on top of all health related issues but I have put off a mammogram that I need to go have taken care of. Thanks for the motivation, I’ll call and make an apt tomorrow and quit putting it off.
This movement will definitely help save lives. Personally, I make it a point not to smoke, not to drink and not to eat fatty foods for the sake of my heart. I also make sure that my family does the same.
This is something I take really seriously since heart disease runs in my family!
Same here Liz. TY!
I like how you listed things people can do each day to help spread heart health awareness! I’m in my thirties and I know that there are things I need to do now, to make sure I have a healthy heart and body for years to come!
I need to be more concerned with my heart health and know I need to make some changes. Heart disease runs in my family and with my own health problems, I don’t need any more.
This is totally an amazing post indeed and thank so much for sharing it. It is so important not only for women but everyone to take care of their hearts. Thanks again for sharing the awareness.
It is so important to get regular blood tests! I get them done every year. :)This sounds like an amazing campaign!
That’s a really good initiative…information really helps….and helps to save lives. Thanks for sharing.
This is really great to increase awareness in heart care. This can really save a lot of lives.
I like the idea of preparing a heart-healthy meal and sharing with a friend. I also like that they use the red dress…that’s a theme that can be tweaked by personality. 🙂
Heart disease is common in my family so this is something we take seriously. Tha k you for spreading the word!
This is a great program. Awareness is the key.
Relay the Red – a very catchy name for a very important campaign. Thank you for all these information! 🙂
We just joined a gym last night. That’s very heart healthy! I need to lose weight and slim down/tone up.
Heart disease is a traitor so we need to do our best to have a healthy lifestyle.
This is a wonderful awareness program/campaign. My grandmother died because of heart disease and it’s true, heart disease is the number one killer of women. We consider it (heart diseases) a traitor for it betrays the heart owner. We should really keep reminding ourselves and our friends esp those who have hereditary heart illness to watch out with their actions, foods, etc.
I wish many people shared about this issue. Many people are dying of heart disease and prevention could have avoided that
Sadly, we live in a society where preventive medicine tends to take a back seat to treatment after the fact… 🙁
I think I should get check ups with my doc more often, but they only like to see patients once a year at the VA Hospital. Thanks for the interesting information.
Thank you Jeanette. Once a year isn’t enough but we can take care of ourselves in the interim.
My mom has a history of hypertension and it is related to a heart illness. I have experienced skipping heart beat and hypertension back in 2010, 5 days after I gave birth thru C-section. It’s really scary when you couldnt breath and i almost fainted and when i was rushed at he ER, they found out about my irregular heart beat. But tha k god im all ok now
I’m glad you are doing better!
This is a great program to raise awareness
Taking good care of our hearts are the main focus of our lives. Without awareness, the subject will slip away and never use for good. Helping others and influencing awareness can move the program. Fernando Lachica
Singapore never had such initiatives and programs. Many people take their hearts and health for granted and never cared about it until problems arises. This pledge will make more people know about the diseases and raise awareness.
Realising how old I am certainly kick started my health kick this year and so far the journey is going well and I feel healthier than ever before. A great program to raise awareness – fab post! 🙂
Blessed Mother’s Day to you too! I agree that we should take steps to take care of our health, especially our heart.
this is definitely a great program…thanks for spreading the information!
this is a great campaign. the heart is something that is close to me in general
awareness on heart disease is so important as many of us now are just so busy and getting stressed all the time… there should be a limit and we should watch for our health as well.
True… we all need reminders. TY! 🙂
We all have a part in society to help increase awareness. I never knew that heart disease is the leading cause of death among women.
Definitely a worthy advocacy! People need to know how to take care of themselves better! 😀
Our heart is really important and we need to do our best for protecting it! 🙂
I love this campaign – thank you for sharing! I think personal health is something we don’t focus on enough many times, but really it should be everyones priority!
I am diabetic but good enough my heart is healthy, sayeth my doctor.
Increasing awareness in heart diseases can really save lives. It is really nice to relay the message to the people.
True… especially as many don’t think about the insidious nature of the disease.
what a great program!!! I’m sharing this with a few friends as well.
Women become more prone to heart disease after menopause. It’s good to speak awareness about this…looking forward to your updates.
In my country, heart disease is one of the major cause of sudden death due to poor diet and lifestyle. You are right, we need to take initiative to spread the the awareness of healthy lifestyle and care for our heart.
It’s such a great campaign and I wish there are more campaigns and program in our country
This is a great program and spreading the awareness of heart disease is very important. I for one have not really thought that I was at risk but now after reading your post I am going to be more conscious about my health. Thanks for sharing.
I have actually started eating a lot healthier. I found out that my heart isn’t 100% so I’ve been doing all I can to take care of it. I want to live a long, long life.
What I did? I made it a point that my heart could beat faster! I had several adventures recently. And yes! Makes me feel alive. I like the idea of also taking care of others’ hearts! Such a beautiful cause! I’d love to join. As an educator, I also believe that “the heart of education, is education of the heart.”
I am always worried about my health and my hubby’s health. Your article is very informative and I will share it with my hubby and we need more healthier food I believe. Thanks