In what can only be described as the sign of the times, high blood pressure is now apparently so serious an issue that the American Heart Association chose to run a 30-second spot during the primest of prime times: Super Bowl XLI (disclaimer: King Pharmaceuticals helped pay for the $2.6 million spot).

Crunched between ads for cheesy Doritos and sugary sodas, is this little healthful spot titled “Heart Attack”. The primary goal of the ad is to warn viewers of the seriousness of high blood pressure and the problems it could lead to including heart attacks and strokes. At the conclusion, users are asked to visit BeatYourRisk.com, an online risk assessment tool from the AHA.

After answering a serious of six questions (gender, age, height, weight, systolic and diastolic blood pressure), the tool gives you a report detailing your risk for heart attack, stroke, heart failure and kidney failure. While no online software can accurately give you these figures, it is apparent that the primary goal of the site is merely to be a dialogue-opener between you and your doctor. With more than 90 million viewers watching the Big Game, the AHA hopes to grab the attention of many high blood pressure sufferers and goad them to take the first step toward fighting the disease.

Without further ado (or giving anything away), here’s presenting “Heart Attack”:
(Note: The following is a YouTube video and it might not work in certain feed-readers or if you are reading this by email. You might need to visit the site to view this video):

Now take your risk assessment at BeatYourRisk.com and be sure to talk to your doctor if anything seems out of the ordinary in the results.

Go on, beat your risk!

Technorati Tags: health, fitness, beat your risk, high blood pressure, super bowl ads, superbowl ads

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Being healthy and fit.

The very concept seems so personal and unique to an individual. When you are in excellent physical condition, there are certain completely individual benefits that you alone will reap: You will have more energy to perform your everyday tasks, you will look and almost certainly feel younger than your age, your clothes will fit better, you are likely to live longer, your life insurance costs will be low and … the list is endless.

So does that mean that a healthy person only benefits himself? Consequently, does that mean one need not care whether other people are healthy or not? I got around to thinking about this while working out last week and realized that it wasn’t true.

Your being healthy affects not only you but those around you as well and so there are a few reasons why you certainly need to care about whether others are healthy or not.

1. Health Care Costs and Medical Insurance: Hypothesize this: Starting from tomorrow all your friends in your zip-code area vow to keep about 5 cars gap between themselves and the car in front, always obey the speed limit and completely ban all distractions while driving. What are the chances your car-insurance premiums will drop within a year? Pretty good I would say. So you would agree that it helps to educate your friends about certain things and their following certain “rules” would benefit you as well. Well, health is no different: with more healthy people and fewer cases of preventable heart disease, adult onset diabetes and various other obesity-related illnesses, the cost of medical insurance and health-care is guaranteed to decrease.
2. Longer, more enjoyable relationships and experiences with the people you love and care about: Let’s face it: Life is no fun when the people you really want to enjoy it with are not in the prime of health. The more healthy your near and dear ones are, the longer and more enjoyable will be the life-experiences you share with them (and they with you). While it seems selfish, you are really doing them a much larger favor than yourself!
3. More healthful choices at the places you like to eat: Think of all the eating spots that you would love to see offer more healthful choices: restaurants, your workplace cafeteria or the vending machine down the hall. With increased awareness of the benefits of staying healthy and fit, people in charge of food establishments will begin to offer better choices everywhere and you will be a big beneficiary of this positive change.
   
4. A more symbiotic and productive work environment: With healthier coworkers your workplace can be transformed into a more productive environment; You can plan tasks knowing they have a higher rate of success because your healthy coworkers will not only be less likely to fall ill or get injured but they will also be more focussed at work and consequently, more productive, all leading to a healthy and efficient workplace. If you are a company owner, a stakeholder or even just a project manager, then I need not even begin to elaborate this point, as you probably already know down to dollars and cents, the cost of having an employee call in sick.

As you can see, it pays high dividends to be concerned about the health of people around you. It’s a small world and sooner or later you will benefit even from the good health of others.

Technorati Tags: health, fitness, nutrition

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