Health Lesson- Have a Healthy Heart

Heart disease is the #1 killer of women in America so it stands to reason that we especially need to educate our daughters in how to live a life style that is conduce to a healthy heart. Our sons need to be educated as well so that they can keep their hearts healthy & when they grow up, they can lead their households in a healthy lifestyle.

1.) Draw a picture of a heart in the middle of a paper. Then around it, write all of the various things your hearts can do. Connect them to your heart with lines so you realize how many things are dependent on your heart. Things that might be included are "to pump blood to your body", "to Love others with" or "to feel happy with."
Activity: You can make this drawing as fancy as you want by painting, coloring or doing it on the computer. Try to see how many things you use your heart for.

2.) You will find that the things you can do with your heart will probably fall into 3 categories: physical, emotional & spiritual. Make three lists & put under each one the things that fall in those categories. Then discuss why it is important for us to be able to use our hearts in each of the 3 categories.
For example, if our hearts don't pump the blood throughout our bodies, we will die. If we did not have our hearts to Love people with, we would be sad, lonely people. If we did not feel God's Love within us, we would not be able to care for others & help them.

3.) Discuss various things that harm our hearts. Include physical reasons (cigarettes, not eating good food, alcohol use, etc.), emotional reasons (people treating us badly, low self esteem, etc.) & spiritual reasons (feeling far away from God, not treating others well).
Feel free to use this as a stepping stone to talk about all kinds of topics that may arise. Be open to what your children may bring up. It is more important to make this topic personal for your family than to hold to a specific agenda.

4.) Here are 5 things that everyone can do to improve their heart health. Have your children copy down them down.
A) Eat healthy & stay hydrated.
B) Exercise your body 30 minutes a day. (3-10min. increments are okay)
C) Make sure your body gets the rest it needs.
D) Take time to do things for fun & to relax.
E) Surround yourself with people who Love you.
Activities: This could be made into a poster or a health scrapbook. You could also brainstorm & come up with ideas in each category. For example, what are healthy foods, what fun things help you to relax, how much sleep do you really need & what kinds of exercises can you do. Each topic could be researched individually.

5.) Come up with 1-2 things under each topic to work on for the following month to help improve your heart health.
Examples: What foods can you make that will be healthy choices? What exercises can you do this month? How will you make sure to get enough rest? What fun things will you be doing to help yourself relax? Who do you Love being around & when will you be seeing them this month?

6.) The American Heart Association has declared Friday, Feb 1 as Wear Red Day so that we can make ourselves & others aware of how important it is to protect our hearts. What can you do to help on Go Red Day?
Activities: Wear RED!!! Have a Red Day- eat healthy red food, decorate your house with red, play Red Rover. Have friends over for a health seminar- serve healthy foods, play games & be with those your Love. Exercise with those you Love by going on a walk or a hike, or taking an exercise class together. Set up a game of flag football or softball, go skating or skiing. There are all kinds of ideas you can come up with. Just PLEASE do something with your kids to show them how important it is to you & to them that you all have healthy hearts!

This is the 5th year for Wear Red Day & I am very passionate about it. I am certainly not nearly as healthy as I should be but every little bit I do helps my heart. Please teach your kids now so that they grow up learning to take care of their hearts because so much of it is preventable by following the above 5 steps. Along the way, our hearts will get better taken care of so that we can continue Loving & taking care of our kids. And isn't that why God gave us our children?
Go Red- Have a healthy heart! Bj