World Heart Day 2021: Spreading information among the general public for prevention and precautions to be adopted for heart care are quintessential parts of the day’s proceedings.
World Heart Day 2021
Every year September 29th is celebrated as World Heart Day. Heart diseases come under the category of non-communicable disorders: they do not transmit from one person to another. Among the many causes of death of the human population, heart ailments stand in the number one position. A global awareness day exclusively to spread information on heart health is much appreciated the world over. Around 17 million lives and more are caused due to heart ailments every year.
History of World Heart Day
World Heart Day was first celebrated in the year 1999. The World Heart Federation (WHF) joined hands with the World Health Organisation (WHO) to raise public awareness of heart health and began an annual event. Antoni Bayes de Luna structured the idea of the program and the event.
Mr Luna served as functional president of WHF in the tenure from 1997 to 1999. Initially, for the sake of convenience, the day was conducted on the last Sunday of September. So, the first celebration was marked on September 24th on history pages. In 1999, the first celebration was themed “Physical Activity”. This theme is centred on the fact that sedentary lifestyles are significant causes of heart diseases.
The World Heart Federation has been instrumental in carrying out the event year after year. It’s a serving nongovernmental organization entrusted with planning, implementation, engaging volunteers, finding resources and setting up a relevant and unique theme every year.
World Heart Day 2021 Theme
Medical themes associated with International Heart Day over the years have been provided below for the reader’s reference:
- The theme for World Heart Day 2021 is undecided as yet. The World Heart Federation shall update the world with an exciting theme for the current year very soon! The theme for the year 2020 was “Use heart to beat cardiovascular disease.”
- The theme for the year 2019 was “My Heart, your heart”. This theme sends out a powerful message to families, individuals, healthcare professionals, doctors and medical teams.
- The year 2008 placed importance on educating people about the symptoms of heart diseases. The year was themed, “Know your risk!” enlightening factors that could develop heart diseases later on.
Celebrations of World Heart Day
World Heart Day is observed by conducting free medical health camps across nations. Educational awareness programs on heart diseases are the major activities for the day. With the latest technology, medical experts and heart surgeons use various platforms to educate the public.
Discussions on social media platforms, conducting live webinar sessions, and podcasts are digitally engaging events. Apart from these, posters, information leaflets, talks and meetings, walkathon’s and sponsored runs also brighten up the day’s events. In medically governed institutions, expert panel discussions, interviews, a collaboration of medical societies, and formal gatherings rule the day’s activities.
Significance of World Heart Day 2021
As they say, prevention is better than cure. A good lifestyle, healthy diet, exercise, drinking plenty of water and adopting healthy lifestyle habits are critical factors to maintaining a good heart. We have to make small changes in our lives to turn unhealthy lifestyles into healthy living choices.
This is possible only with massive awareness campaigns on a great day like World Heart Day. Smoking is one major cause of the deadly diseases of the lungs, cancer, and heart diseases. In its efforts to reduce the global occurrence of heart diseases, the European study of cardiology has stressed that awareness creation and improved education on heart health are the need of the hour.
Among the worldwide population, it casts a strong influence on reducing hypertension, maintaining healthy blood sugar, normal functioning of cardiac structure linked to good brain health. So we can see that all these factors are interrelated, and one functionality has a long-lasting impact on the other part. Through improved discussions, many cognitive complications like stroke and heart attacks are being dealt with positively.
Come, let’s support their mission of reducing heart diseases of all kinds by the year 2025 and help each other to lead healthy lifestyles!