World Heart Day

World Heart Day is a global event to raise awareness and educate people about cardiovascular disease (CVD) and ways to help keep our hearts healthy. Created by the World Heart Foundation, World Heart Day is designed to help encourage people to take care of their heart health and control risk factors that may contribute to CVD both for themselves, and for others. World Heart Day happens every year on 29th September.

What is cardiovascular disease (CVD)?

CVD refers to the disease of the heart, blood vessels or vascular disease of the brain. This includes heart attacks and strokes. CVD is the number one cause of death in the world. CVD can be genetic, but there are certain risk factors that can be controlled to help prevent us from suffering from CVD.

What causes cardiovascular disease?

There are a variety of factors that can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. Some of these, like genetic predisposition, cannot be modified, but there are some things we can do to help reduce the risk of CVD. Here are some of the causes:

• Physical factors – smoking, an unhealthy diet, stress and a lack of exercise can all contribute to CVD – trying to control these and monitoring blood pressure regularly can help to reduce the risk
• Heart conditions, hypertension and high cholesterol
• Genetic predisposition through family history or existing conditions, such as diabetes
• Age – as you get older your risk of CVD increases, so it is even more important to look after your health

How to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease

There are a number of ways to help reduce some of these risk factors:

• Reduce sugar intake
• Make sure you get your 5 a day
• Reduce salt and fat intake
• Try and get 30 minutes of exercise, five times a week

What happens on World Heart Day?

There are a number of different activities that take place on World Heart Day. Some of these include:

• Awareness and education – this includes talks, social events for sufferers of CVD and more
• Access to health screenings
• Sports activities
• Exhibitions
• Fundraising events

Fun facts about the heart

• The heart is about the size of an adult fist
• It is the strongest muscle in the body
• It takes approximately 45 seconds for the heart to circulate blood all around the body
• The sound of your heartbeat is made by the 4 valves of the heart opening and closing as your blood flows
• Your heart beats about 100,000 times a day

World Heart Day in the classroom

Teach students all about the heart with this fabulous display poster. The learn all about keeping it healthy with this great worksheet. You can find more great, teacher-made resources for World Heart Day on our website.