September 29 is celebrated as the World Heart Day. And on this occasion, a study done by AC Nielson and vetted by Medical Nutrition Foundation has published the findings of the study. The study titled ‘Saffolalife study 2017’ has highlighted the barriers faced by Indians in leading a healthy life for a healthy heart.
The study was carried out in Delhi, Mumbai, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata. The study revealed startling city-specific facts, including age-specific and gender-specific barriers that come in the way of people being able to put efforts to have a healthy heart.
In this study, job stress, long working hours and temptation of tasty food are identified as the key barriers to maintain the healthy heart in India. As many as 1306 respondents (men and women) in the age group of 35-44 years, who were identified at risk of Cardio Vascular Diseases (CVD), were part of this study. As much as 83% of the respondents cited temptation of tasty food as the main barrier in the way of having healthy heart.
Dr Shashank Joshi, Padmashree Awardee, President of Hypertension Society of India, Senior Endocrinologist at Lilavati Hospital and Research Institute explained how one can eat tasty food and still maintain the health. “The simple mantra is to eat mindfully. Eat less and do extra physical activity to burn the extra calories. Also, sharing the food helps a lot. If you share the dish, you will eat less and the intake of calories will be automatically reduced,” said Dr Joshi.
The Saffolalife study also highlighted what prevents women form having healthy heart. As many as 81% women feel that household work takes up a lot of their time, which is a reason they don’t get time to make required efforts to stay healthy. Also, around 74% women said that would need to cook separately for her if she wants to have healthy food and that itself becomes the barrier.
Talking how women should take care of themselves, Dr Joshi said, “Women should find time to do physical activity. If they can’t walk for an hour at a stretch, then this should walk 4 times for 15 minutes in a day. Also, they shouldn’t eat left over food at home.”
The study has also thrown light on the key barriers to keep heart healthy in Mumbai. They are as follows:
78% Mumbai respondents feel that long working hours is a barrier to have a healthy heart
70% Mumbai respondents feel that they don’t get enough sleep
66% Mumbai respondents feel that they spend long hours travelling every day and it is a barrier to have a healthy heart
70% Mumbai respondents feel that stress due to their job or business prevent them frm making health efforts.
66% Mumbai respondents feel that stress at home acts as a barrier towards keeping the heart healthy
56% Mumbai respondents feel that they don’t have space to exercise
69% women in Mumbai feel that stress at home prevents them from making efforts towards health
90% Mumbai men feel that they get usually tempted when they come across tasty food
80% women in Mumbai feel that household work takes up a lot of their time and they don’t get enough time to put in efforts to keep heart healthy
66% in Mumbai feel that healthy food is not tasty so it is difficult to eat regularly
85% Mumbaikars get tempted by tasty food which comes in their way of staying healthy
66% women in Mumbai said that being healthy means spending more and hence prevents them from making some healthy choices for the heart
78% women in Mumbai site ‘healthy food means cooking separately for self’ as an obstacle in their effort to keep heart healthy