 "Photo: Steven Gold")
The university celebrated Heart Disease Awareness Month by hosting "UD Goes Red," an informative event promoting women's heart health, Feb. 25 at Trabant University Center.
The event was held by the Employee Wellness Center and HealthyU and was organized by its program coordinator, Linda Smith. "UD Goes Red" offered several activities for visitors, including informational booths, free blood pressure screenings, a red dress fashion contest and a lecture on the prevalence of heart disease in women.
Smith said the event focused on women's heart health for a few reasons, mainly because the symptoms in men and women are different.
"Heart disease in women is more subtle," Smith said. "There is no feeling like an elephant crushing your chest like in men."
Kathleen McNicholas, a cardiothoracic surgeon for Christiana Care, gave an hour-long lecture about the dangers of heart disease in women and commented on the belief that the disease is primarily found in men.
"Women have the lion's share of heart disease," McNicholas said.
She said 500,000 women die from heart disease per year, and 50 percent of women will develop the disease over their lifetimes.
The symptoms of heart-related problems in women are subtle and can be missed or misdiagnosed easily, McNicholas said. She told a chilling anecdote about a woman who died at the age of 41 from a heart attack thinking she had the flu.
McNicholas stressed the importance of working toward a healthy lifestyle early on, calling such choices the primary treatment for heart disease. Many factors that contribute to heart disease, like obesity and smoking, can be counteracted by leading a healthy life.
Sophomore Ariana Semegen was one of several nursing students giving free blood pressure screenings to event-goers. She said women's heart health has been an important topic covered in her studies at the university.
"We talked about it a lot in class," Semegen said. "There is a growing population of people affected by heart disease, and it's really prominent in women."
Smith said the event was based around the American Heart Association's women's heart health movement. The AHA's Go Red for Women campaign aims to spread awareness of the intricacies of heart disease in women and to reduce coronary heart disease and stroke risk by at least 25 percent by 2010, according to its Web site.
"The whole campaign tries to reach women through their love of fashion," she said.
Frances Mayhew, an associate professor for the university's department of fashion and apparel studies, said Smith asked her to come up with something that would tie in with the theme of women's cardiac care. The idea for a red dress fashion design contest started as a result.
"We were thinking that the fashion angle would interest young women," Mayhew said.
Dress designs were shown in two different ways at the event. Some students made dresses in their fashion classes, and the dresses were put up on display while other students made illustrations of their designs.
Junior Sarah App, junior Kimberly Cignarella and senior Samantha Grandy tied for first place for dress designs, and junior Jenna Shaw was awarded second place. The winning designs will be included in the fashion department's annual spring fashion show this May.
The contest was conducted by the use of raffle tickets. Half of the proceeds of the fashion contest will be donated to the local branch of the AHA, Mayhew said. The rest will be dispersed among the contest winners, according to the Employee Wellness Center's Web site.
"Most people think the major cause of death for women is breast cancer, but it's heart disease," she said. "The Heart Association wants to get that message out."
Follow us on Twitter
Subscribe to our feed
Contact us through email
Be the first to comment on this article!