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Weight | Activity | Tobacco | Cholesterol | High blood pressure
"How are we going to pay for health care if Texans are going to have to leave the workforce, disabled by complications of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, heart attack, or stroke at a premature age?"
— Jim Rohack, MD, 2000-01 President, Texas Medical Association
Texas Physicians Applaud Senator Nelson’s Fitness Initiative
The Texas Medical Association stands firmly behind Sen. Jane Nelson’s actions to promote prevention and wellness among Texas schoolchildren. Her fitness initiative and call for accountability is a critical step toward curbing the escalating childhood obesity epidemic. All aspects of Senator Nelson’s initiative address the recommendations that leaders from medicine, government, health insurance, and business drafted in TMA’s Healthy Vision 2010 health care summits. The group reached consensus that improving overall wellness and prevention for all Texans is critical. More...
President Bush outlined four guideposts in his new initiative, "Healthier Us." They are: work out every day, eat a nutritious diet, get preventative screenings, and cut out tobacco, drugs and excessive drinking.
Project WATCH
The bad news is cardiovascular disease (causes heart attack) and stroke (brain attack) kill more people each year than cancer, accidents, and AIDS combined. The good news is they are preventable. If you are interested in finding out how to prevent having a heart or brain attack (and we know you are), read on.
The preventable five risk factors that cause heart and brain attack are Weight, Activity, Tobacco, Cholesterol, and High blood pressure. Project WATCH, a cardiovascular disease and stroke prevention education program, aims to knock the No. 1 and No. 3 killers of Texans off the charts. View TMA's PowerPoint presentation on WATCH. To implement the WATCH program in your community see TMA's WATCH implementation Guide.
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Project WATCH focuses on physical inactivity in schoolchildren and their risk for cardiovascular disease and stroke. TMA has produced bookmarks featuring WAGS the watchdog, with a message on the importance of physical activity.
Get a healthy start: Prevent heart disease and stroke in childhood, when both good and bad habits begin to form. Parents, make yourselves good role models for children. Pay attention to what you and your family eat, how much television you watch, and the amount of physical activity you achieve. Set an example to your family by avoiding alcohol, cigarettes, and other drugs.
By educating Texas physicians and the public, Project WATCH will work to decrease the number of lives cardiovascular disease claims in the Lone Star State. In 1996, 42,330 Texans died from heart disease – up from 41,630 in 1995. And stroke took 9,845 lives, compared to 9,788 in 1995. Together, heart disease and stroke cost the state more than $9 billion a year, which totals more than $500 per Texan.
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State Profiles on Nutrition and Fitness
At the heart of the Action for Healthy Kids initiative are state teams composed of individuals who are committed to improving the nutrition and fitness of our nation's children. To help these state teams understand the challenges they face, State Profiles (PDF ) providing important background information and data on nutrition and fitness have been developed for every state.
Texas Facts
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Heart disease claimed 42,330 lives (30.3 percent of all deaths) in 1996, up from 41,630 in 1995.
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Stroke caused 9,845 deaths (7 percent of all deaths) in 1996, up from 9,788 in 1995.
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Heart disease and stroke together cost the state more than $9 billion a year, which totals more than $500 per Texan.
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In 1995, CVD was listed as a principal cause of hospitalization for approximately 185,000 Medicare patients in Texas; Medicare paid more than $1 billion for these stays. Medicare charges from cardiovascular disease procedures alone in Texas were more than $500 million.
U.S. Facts
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According to the American Heart Association (AHA), 58.2 million Americans are estimated to have one or more types of CVD, which claims more lives than the next seven leading causes of death combined.
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On average, someone in the United States suffers a stroke every 53 seconds; every 3.3 minutes someone dies of one.
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At least 250,000 Americans die each year from heart attacks within one hour of experiencing symptoms and before reaching a hospital.
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Stroke is a leading cause of serious, long-term disability in the United States. About 4.4 million stroke victims are alive today, according to the AHA.
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More than 4.9 million Americans have congestive heart failure, which is the single most frequent case of hospitalization of Americans age 65 and older.
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According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's Framingham Heart Study, 28 percent of annual stroke victims are under age 65.
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The AHA has estimated that CVD cost Americans $274 billion in medical expenses and lost productivity in 1998.
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About 29 percent of people who have an initial stroke die within a year. This percentage is higher among people age 65 and older.
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CVD is the No. 1 cause of emergency room visits, and more money is spent on treating heart disease and stroke than any other cause of hospitalization.
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The average cost of coronary artery bypass totals $44,200 per patient, not including rehabilitation and lost productivity.
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In 1995, $3.7 billion ($5,718 per discharge) was paid to Medicare beneficiaries for stroke, according to Health Care Financing Administration data.
Source: Texas Coalition on Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke, January 1999
Links of Interest
This section contains best-practice publications on weight management, plus a prescription pad for weight loss success, a quick-reference card on "best practice" weight counseling techniques, and a pocket-sized, self-retracting tape for quick waist circumference measurement.
Last Published: 1/23/2009 Print this page
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