Heart-healthy living: help reduce your child's risk of heart disease
You can help reduce your children's risk of heart disease by taking steps to control factors that puts them at greater risk. These include:
- Help your child understand the dangers associated with smoking; and if you are a smoker, find a program to help you quit.
- Encourage your child to exercise.
- Monitor your child's blood pressure.
These actions do not cure heart disease; heart-healthy living habits are most effective when started at an early age: sensible eating, keeping cholesterol levels low, getting regular exercise, refraining from smoking and maintaining a healthy weight.
- Eating healthy foods low in fat can help prevent the build up of dangerous plaque within the arteries which causes a narrowing in the parts of the body that carry blood, making it difficult for the heart to pump blood throughout the body. Wise diet decisions also help maintain a healthy weight so that the heart does not have to strain to maintain blood flow.
- Aerobic exercise such as swimming, bicycling, jogging, skiing, dancing, walking and dozens of other activities can help build the strength of the heart to keep it beating strong. Exercise also helps maintain a healthy weight by burning off extra calories. Also, smoking greatly damages the heart and should be avoided or stopped.
- Heart-healthy living is especially important for children who were born with heart defects to prevent additional complications from the medical and surgical procedures used to treat their heart disease throughout adolescence and adulthood.
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