Dynamic Conditioning Centre

With February comes everyone’s favourite celebration or perhaps it should be.  You guessed it. February is Heart month. 
 
If you’ve never taken the time to consider the rates of obesity and the increasing obesity in children, maybe this is the month.  From 1979, 3% of Canadian youth aged 2 to 17 were obese. By 2004 that number ballooned to 8% - an estimated 500,000 obese! An additional 18% of Canadian children and youth are considered overweight. These stats together result in more than 26% (1/3) of Canadian children being either overweight or obese.

What’s worse is these overweight youths, while well fed, are very likely malnourished.  Things like calcium, magnesium, vitamins D and E are typically at the top of the scale for nutrients they aren’t getting enough of. 

Further, studies have shown that children who are obese throughout their childhood, are more likely to remain obese as adults.
 
Of course, obesity is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke.  If you are overweight or obese, your chances for heart disease are more than two times as likely than that of a healthy individual (not to mention more than 3 times as likely for high blood pressure and more than 4 times as likely to have diabetes).

If you haven’t given thought to heart month before, maybe this is the year that you’d like to begin thinking about it – it’s never to late to help yourself or someone you know and put them towards a healthier long lasting lifestyle!

For more information please visit the heart and stroke website.

Another terrific thing you may want to venture out to is the Science Center where BodyWorlds II is being held.  It’s a terrific look at the human body in ways you’ve never seen before and it goes into greath depth of the intricacies of the heart