For Immediate Release

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

Valerie Still Gets Refrigerator Makeover for Heart Health

COLUMBUS (January 1999) Valerie Still, a leading scorer with the Columbus Quest and All-Star member of the American Basketball League, received a “refrigerator makeover” on Wednesday, January 7 when “Open the Door to a Healthy Heart” visited Columbus, the fifth stop on a “celebrity refrigerator makeover tour.” Open the Door to a Healthy Heart is a national consumer awareness campaign about diet and heart disease.

The campaign is educating consumers that heart-healthy eating starts with something as simple as a look inside their refrigerator. As part of the program, Dr. Debra Judelson, cardiologist and immediate president of the American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA), is making over local celebrities’ refrigerators in major cities across the country.

In addition to helping Still and her family eat more healthfully, Dr. Judelson will bring attention to the fact that heart disease is the nation’s No. 1 killer. Every 34 seconds, an American life is killed by the disease, which in 1997, will claim nearly 1 million lives. In addition, research shows that a woman who has a heart attack is twice as likely as a man to have a second one. In women, one in 25 dies of breast cancer, while one in two dies of cardiovascular disease, including heart attack or stroke (though most women are unaware of this statistic).

Cardiovascular disease is the No. 1 cause of death in Columbus, accounting for 1,580 deaths, or 31 percent of all deaths, according to the Franklin County affiliate of the American Heart Association.

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 (CDC) 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 butter to soft margarine, whole milk to one-percent or skim milk, 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.

Dr. Judelson will offer tips for a “heart-healthy refrigerator” so that anyone can make over their refrigerator and “open the door” to heart-healthy eating.

# # #

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