Heart health at core

SHOPPERS will be seeing red at Casey Central Shopping Centre this weekend during a Heart Foundation campaign.
For the second year, the centre will be backing the Go Red for Women campaign with a series of community events to raise awareness of heart disease- which claims the life of four times as many women as breast cancer each year.
In an effort to address the problem, Casey Central, together with the AMP Capital Shopping Centres, hope to raise $100,000 through the Go Red for Women awareness initiatives, which include prizes for shoppers spotted wearing red, raffle tickets, free blood pressure checks, free health checks and more.
National CEO of the Heart Foundation Dr Lyn Roberts said spreading the word about heart disease was vital to the health of Australian women.
“Understanding that women are far from immune to heart disease is the first step in encouraging more women to reduce their risks and lead long, healthy lives,” Dr Roberts said.
Centre manager Anna-Maree Coco said she hoped the community would support the cause.
“Once we learned heart disease is the number one killer for women, we wanted to do everything we could to help,” she said.
“It’s time to dispel some of the myths around heart disease, and face the facts that heart health is a relevant issue for women over 45; it’s not a disease that just old men get”.
Casey Central Shopping Centre will host the activities on 27 August from 10am until 3pm.