Silent #1 Killer

Everyday when I am walking to and from work I pass by a billboard from the BC Cancer Society. The phrases have said, "Which cancer kills women the most?" and "We speak Engligh, French and Cancer". I have no problem that they are educating people about cancer - go ahead, the more the better - but I never see ANY signs educating people about heart disease, which is the number one killer of women.

Hmmmm....heart disease? What's that?, you ask. Well, heart disease is a condition that happens when your arteries become clogged with cholesterol and fats (saturated fats, trans-fats....), you have a heart attack and then die (or you live and have triple by-pass surgery). The thing is, it's very quiet. You can be living your normal life and then BAM you go into cardiac arrest and boom you're in a fridge in the morgue. Nice, eh?

The thing that upsets me is that cancer is pretty well known. Eat this for antioxidents, eat that to fight cancer, cell phones and standing too close to your microwave causes cancer. It's in the media almost everyday and has been for awhile. No jokes about it, cancer is not a subject to take lightly, and I'm not (I lost my Grandfather to cancer), my point is that heart disease is infact silent, and it's being broadcasted on mute.

I want a lot of things to change in this world while I'm still on it. I want our education system to change in the fact that we should be educating people on healthly lifestyles as soon as they enter school. We shouldn't be singling out certain diseases because one is more important than another. If we educate and set good examples for people, then I believe that that the cancer, heart disease and diabetes rates will go down.

I am an advocate for living a heathy lifestyle (I know, I know.....I must get my asses to the gym as it's been far too long). I want everyone to be an advocate for health. I don't want things to be silent anymore.