Online CPR Certification Blog

According to the “American Heart Association” AHA, the future does not look very bright for the youth of today as far as the health of their hearts is concerned. This is as long as they fail to make drastic and immediate changes in their cultural as well as social lifestyles.

A sample that was representative of over 30 million United States teenagers revealed that more than 99 % had unsatisfactory dieting habits. Studies that were led by a highly educated lady known as Christina Shay revealed that a huge number of United States kids aged between 12 years and 19 years have unsatisfactory levels of a good diet intake as well as low levels of physical exercises needed to maintain the good health of their hearts.

Measuring of cardiovascular health

The poor lifestyle habits are arguably the major reason why most of the kids involved in the study were found to have high levels of blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol.

Christina Shay however expressed optimism from the fact that many of the unfavorable risk factors of the heart disease are adjustable by the simple act of changing lifestyles.

Just recently, AHA unveiled the strategic goals achievable in the year 2020, aimed to assist in the prevention of heart diseases and maintain healthy hearts for its citizen’s right from their youth ages throughout even to their old age.

AHA spells out or describes heart health by 7 health habits as well as factors. This are: BMI, not smoking, diet intake, level of exercising, blood sugar, cholesterol level and blood pressure. Each and every category of these mentioned factors is quantified with a composite health score of 0, 1, and 2. 0 represents a poor core, 1 represents an intermediate score and 2 represents an ideal score

Components of heart health were examined for about 4,670 adolescents of between twelve and nineteen years from 2005 through to 2010. The data was from a survey organization called ‘NHANES’. This sample was a representation of approximately 33 million teenagers in the United States. More over, the sample was very well balanced between males and female participants.

Thorough scrutiny of the data revealed that less than half of the teenagers showed at least 5 of the ideal heart health components by AHA. Of the maximum achievable score which is 14, white non Hispanic boys scored 9.3 while white non Hispanic girls scored 9.4 Boys who are Mexican American natives had a score of 8.4 and black non Hispanic girls had a score of 8.7

White non Hispanic girls recorded low cholesterol levels in general

Parents and their children alike should form a habit of visiting their physician on a regular basis to find out their blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure levels. A lot of people have as a result of ignorance of such matters ended up with some serious heart complications that could have been avoided. Matters of cardiovascular health are to be taken very seriously as they are a matter of life and death.