On Feb. 5, Recreation and Wellness celebrated National Wear Red Day with a heart walk around the Eppler South gym track.
The theme for the walk was “piecing together a healthy heart,” and at different stops on the walk, there would be a trivia question for participants to answer.
Karyn Smith, a health educator at the rec center, said National Wear Red Day is a day sponsored through the American Heart Association.
“They’ve done such a great job at providing lots of resources and tool kits and guidance for not only individuals, but also corporations and universities to implement some events on their campus to help bring the awareness of heart disease, the symptoms and things we can to do prevent it as well,” Smith said.
In order for individuals to maintain a heart-healthy lifestyle, Smith said it’s recommended that Americans get 150 minutes of exercise per week, which averages out to 30 minutes a day.
“Any form of exercise counts, so it’s just something that is going to increase your heart rate. By doing that, it gets your heart stronger so it’s more efficient and your body just performs more efficiently when it has a nice strong heart. … Exercise is definitely a key component to living a healthy lifestyle,” Smith said.
The 30 minutes you do in a day can be spread out through multiple points in the day, but in order to get the benefits from exercise, you need to do something that will raise your heart rate and be able to sustain it for at least 10 minutes.
Participants who attended the event said they learned many things about being heart-healthy and maintaining a nutritious diet from the trivia placed around the track, which reinforced the points on nutrition.
“I just really support uniting against heart disease. I think that’s a really good cause and I think it’s important for everyone to keep their heart-healthy throughout their lives and to exercise,” sophomore Ashley Murphy said. “I learned how to manage blood pressure and how to reduce blood sugar (and) what levels I should keep it around.”
Some participants were surprised to learn about the make up of things, like freshman Kenyetta Johnson, who was surprised to learn that one cigarette has over 4,000 chemicals. Others were surprised to learn the maximum amount of sodium needed in a daily diet.
“They had a question about how much sodium does the body need and the answer was actually 2000 milligrams but we thought it was way less than that. We thought 2000 millgrams is really salty, especially coming from the perspective of a black woman, (because) we most of the time suffer from high blood pressure,” junior Rekya Evans said.
With February being American Heart Month, it made sense to do the heart healthy walk since heart disease is the leading cause of death in America and 80 percent of heart disease can be prevented by changing behaviors.
The goal of the event was to raise awareness about heart disease and for participants to realize there are steps to take in order to change their lifestyle and behaviors.
