Westchester Go Red for Women Luncheon & Learning Sessions

Did you know that heart disease is the no. 1 killer of women over age 25? One in three women will die of heart disease and stroke, compared with one in thirty from breast cancer. With all the women’s magazines do to scare us about breast and cervical cancer, how about a bit more focus on a bigger albeit less easily associated killer of women?

Westchester NOW understands that risk and sent its representative, Susan Damplo, Vice President for Membership to the 2009 luncheon and learning sessions to raise heart disease awareness, which is sponsored by the American Heart Association. Here’s a quick report of highlights from that event.

The Go Red for Women campaign includes an illustrious group of feminists. Among the American Heart Association Westchester Region’s board members, you’ll find Dr. Lynne Perry-Bottinger. Long-time Westchester NOW chapter members will recall Dr. Perry-Bottinger’s talk about heart health at one of our Solstice Parties, which chapter member Beth Levy organized.

The 2009 Go Red for Women gathering was the area’s Sixth annual event. The learning sessions explored notions of supermoms and definitions of beauty. Supermoms were cautioned to assess work and family demands, cultural influences, and perspectives with the goal of preserving YOU in the mix. Attendees got tips on restoring sanity and balance, managing life’s issues and being one’s self.

Susan Damplo attended the breakout session on beauty. With skepticism at the title, Becoming Serenely Beautiful, she was heartened to see that the session meshed well with NOW’s own campaign to Love Your Body. The session addressed healthy habits to promote greater inner peace and energy to meet the cacophony of life’s challenges in today’s world. It began by bracing the participants with the statement that women do a disservice by placing EVERYONE else’s needs ahead of their own. And it even defeats the martyrs among us, since that endless selflessness winds ups making us resentful and cranky to be around! Participants were exposed to experts on cardiology, massage, mediation, exercise, psychology, nutrition, and other disciplines to provide tools to consider and incorporate in our lives to combat stress. As the panelists emphasized, stress leads to hormonal imbalance and can alter the expression of people’s genes by for example increasing insulin receptors that contribute to diabetes. We need to be vigilant to combat heart-damaging stress as we navigate through life.

If you or a loved one has experienced heart disease, consider visiting GoRedForWomen.org to help empower yourself to combat this disease. In a society that still fights to combat misogyny and marginalization of the majority of the population, the site and the campaign is one more arrow in the quiver to fulfilling the goal of women’s equality.

In loving memory of Susan’s aunt, Geri, who avoided seeking medical treatment following breast cancer for fear that the cancer had returned and who died from a heart attack.