For Immediate Release

Contact:
Beth Hubrich, R.D.
(404) 252-3663

"Open the Door to a Healthy Heart" Campaign

ATLANTA You are what you eat. And perhaps the best way to find out what you’re eating is to take a good look inside your refrigerator. Besides the half-empty pizza box and old jar of pickles, what other kinds of foods do you have and which ones are in plain view? How many would be considered “heart-healthy?”

“Open the Door to a Healthy Heart,” a national consumer awareness campaign about diet and heart disease, is educating consumers that heart-healthy eating starts with something as simple as a look inside your refrigerator. As part of the program, Dr. Debra Judelson, cardiologist and past president of the American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA), has been making over local celebrities’ refrigerators in major cities across the country.

The first makeover took place in Atlanta, at the home of Atlanta’s consumer guru Clark Howard, host of WSB Radio’s The Clark Howard Show, consumer reporter for WSB-TV, columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and author of Clark Howard’s Consumer Survival Kit. Dr. Judelson gave Howard’s refrigerator a “B” because it contained heart-healthy foods such as skim milk, a squeeze margarine product and low-fat salad dressing. Howard, who boasts that his idea of breakfast is two doughnuts, told Dr. Judelson that his wife has been helping him eat more healthfully.

Heart disease is the nation’s No. 1 killer. Last year, nearly 1 million Americans were expected to die from heart disease. Yet despite health professionals’ efforts, success in fighting the disease is slowing down because of unhealthy lifestyles, primarily poor diet, obesity and physical inactivity, according to a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. Health experts recommend that nutrition is the first step to prevention and treatment. But change doesn’t have to be all or nothing, Dr. Judelson says.

“I suggest men and women take small steps, one at a time such as switching from whole milk to one-percent or skim milk, from butter to soft margarine, and from ice cream to low-fat frozen yogurt,” she notes.

Despite the wide range of information on nutrition and the greater availability and variety of “better-for-you” foods, Americans are more overweight than ever before, according to government reports. Recent surveys indicate that because consumers are confused by the latest nutrition “report of the week,” they have put up barriers to good nutrition. These barriers include limited time, no motivation, inconvenience of healthy eating and confusion about the effects of various foods on health.

In each city, Dr. Judelson offered tips for a “heart-healthy refrigerator” so that anyone can make over their refrigerator and“open the door” to heart-healthy eating. In addition, refrigerators were donated to Habitat for Humanity.

We visited Philadelphia, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Columbus, Phoenix, Detroit and Baltimore