"Healthy Woman Is A Healthy Life"

Health of a woman is significant not for herself only, but also for her family, although the matter of health can be challenging but there are ways to make it easier. It seems that women are being asked to do more and more to improve their health and it's also a matter of fact that women are more conscious for their personal health and fitness for which they eat certain foods and exercise daily to prevent certain diseases plus if they have family, they are likely to make healthy choices not for themselves but for their family also.

A big number of women these days struggle with their beauty, fitness, diet and number of other things that affect their daily life. A woman's health needs change with her age, while they have no control over their genetic makeup, each woman knows that their health is influenced by diet and lifestyle choices that they can control.

It has been such a long time of innovation in science and technology has passed, but still the health of a woman remains a serious concern. All they need are some healthy steps that they should follow throughout for leading towards a happy and healthy life. What's necessary is to have a healthy diet with tons of exercise.

Aerobics and yoga with respect to exercise is very important for a woman not for their fitness only, but it also makes them physically more active, young and energetic. The body of a woman at any age needs some relaxing exercise which may also help them to lead towards a change in mind and body, Aerobics and Yoga are one of the useful elements for a peaceful mind and a great mind is all you need for living a prosperous life. Fitness is an important component of overall health. Staying in shape lets your body's systems accomplish their jobs more efficiently, and you'll look and feel better too.

One of the problems a woman deal with is weight, which is the biggest enemy of their fitness, but all they need is a fun activity that helps them to burn fat. Some activities burn more calories than others, so knowing which activities burn the most calories in the shortest time can be helpful to those with busy schedules. You don't always have to go to the gym to burn calories because the activities you do every day can help with weight loss.

Whereas, apart from the fitness and exercise, good nutrition is an important part of leading a healthy lifestyle. Combined with physical activity, your diet can help you to reach and maintain a healthy weight. A healthy diet gives you energy, supports your mood, maintains your weight, and keeps you looking your best. It can also be a huge support through the different stages in life. A big step in eating healthy is recognizing the food groups you should be eating daily. Fruits and vegetables are great for snacking and you can literally eat as much as you want.

Whatever your age, committing to a healthy diet will help you look and feel your best so that you stay on top of your commitments and enjoy life. It can sound hard to some, but really, it's not that hard! All you have to do is portion what you eat. To maintain a healthy diet can sound hard to some extinct, but it's not that hard, all you have to do is to recognize the foods you should eat small portions.

A healthy woman can build up many new healthy lives so, a woman should be very careful about their fitness and diet. The link between good nutrition and healthy weight, reduced chronic disease risk, and overall health is too important to ignore. By taking steps to eat healthy, a woman will be on her way to get the nutrients that her body needs to stay healthy, active, and strong. As with physical activity, making small changes in diet can go a long way, and it's easier than anybody can think.

SIDRA AKHLAQ

KARACHI.

MAKING A NOISE ABOUT THE SILENT DISEASE- OSTEOPOROSIS

The origin of the word 'osteoporosis' begins to explain the condition - 'osteo' is for bones and 'porosis' means porous, resulting in weakness.

Osteoporosis is of particular interest to post menopausal women, but the bone condition also affects other groups of people.

Osteoporosis is called the “Silent Disease" because bone is lost with no signs. You may not know that you have osteoporosis until a strain, bump, or fall causes a bone to break.

Osteoporosis is a disease of the bones, characterized by decadence of bone structure, increasing brittleness of bones, also increasing the risks of fractures. It is the chief cause of bone fractures in aged people. It is a growing problem affecting women in particular. It is one of the common diseases in our country affecting mostly women of 45-54 age groups. As soon as the woman of our country crosses 40 she starts complaining about bone aches. Poor literacy rates coupled with lack of awareness of the risk factors is the major cause of the increase in Osteoporosis in Pakistan. Better knowledge about this disease can contribute a lot for its prevention.

Various risk factors for osteoporosis have been determined. These include; Calcium and Vitamin D deficiency, advancing age, early menopause in women, smoking, excessive intake of caffeine, family history of osteoporosis, lack of physical exercise, prolonged lactation, low body weight, etc. It is a major cause of wrist and hip bone fractures in elderly, resulting in disability and severe pain. Diet low in calcium and Vitamin D cause bone fragility leading to bone fractures.

This is a modern era, people like to watch movies on T.V, prefer playing games on computers rather than taking part in physical games. They prefer cold drinks, chocolates, junk food instead of taking proper nutritious diet.

Mostly, Pakistani women keep themselves busy with household chores, pay no attention in taking proper nutritious diet and ignore their health issues, as a result they easily fall prey to this disease. Pakistan is a conservative country where on average every woman gives birth to five children at least, these women lose a lot of calcium during lactation, but don't replace it accordingly, as a result become nutritionally-deprived.

            

A recent study reveals that in Pakistan more than 6 million people are suffering from osteoporosis and if proper measures are not taken this figure might increase to an alarming extent in coming years.

If dire actions are not taken to control this disease, then a huge proportion of young Pakistani women will suffer from osteoporosis in the future causing burden on the health resources.

     NORMAL V.S OESTOPOROTIC BONE

Preventive habits that can help in fighting against osteoporosis include; physical exercise on a daily basis, taking proper diet that is rich in Calcium and Vitamin-D (like fresh leafy vegetables, fish, milk etc.), abeyance of smoking and also controlling caffeine consumption. Giving awareness about this disease through health education programs will reduce risks of osteoporosis and will prevent the development of the disease.                

Developing countries like Pakistan continue to be unprepared to handle the burden of the ailment. This, coupled with lack of education and awareness of the risk factors and symptoms of osteoporosis ends up with poor results.

Osteoporosis may have its roots in childhood and adolescence, which is the period when your body does the most bone building. Women reach their peak bone mass, at about age 18. After that, women continue to build small amounts of bone mass. By 30, your bones are fully stocked, and although your body will continue to replace old bone cells, there will be no increase in bone mass past that point.

Add osteoporosis to the long list of health issues, like mood swings and migraines that you can blame on your hormones. Although there are other possible genetic and environmental factors behind bone loss, your body's changing levels of estrogen remains the most culpable suspect.

Estrogen is a hormone that helps regulate a woman’s reproductive cycle. At the same time, it plays a role in keeping bones strong and healthy in women. While pre menopausal women have more estrogen, women will experience dramatic drops in estrogen production due to menopause, and are more likely to experience bone loss and osteoporosis at that time.

Women are at increased osteoporosis risk related to estrogen levels if they:

·         Experience irregular or infrequent periods, or began having their periods at a later than normal age.

·         Have had their ovaries removed (at any age).

·         Are going through menopause, with those undergoing menopause at an early age, having an even higher risk.

However, Osteoporosis have even been linked with an increased risk of death. Some 20% of women with a hip fracture will die in the subsequent year as an indirect result of the fracture. In addition, once a person has experienced a spine fracture due to osteoporosis, he or she is at very high risk of suffering another such fracture in the near future (next few years). About 20% of postmenopausal women who experience a vertebral fracture will suffer a new vertebral fracture of bone in the following year.

Moreover, every year there are more than 230,000 fractures due to osteoporosis, with 70,000 hip fractures, 50,000 wrist fractures and 120,000 vertebral fractures. 

According to a recent study, women with higher socioeconomic status have considerably better awareness and knowledge of osteoporosis than women with a low socioeconomic status, regardless of age. Hence, to reduce the risk of osteoporosis, prevention awareness programs must be organized to spread the awareness on this issue on the grass - root level and save the women from this life-threatening disease.

The knowledge of osteoporosis among women is very limited and the information is poorly internalized.

Therefore, to prevent the disease, you must fully understand osteoporosis concerning the risk factors and preventive behaviors.

Thus, studies indicate that knowledge of risk factors and treatment for osteoporosis is a primary contributor to osteoporosis preventive behavior. Osteoporosis is considered as “The Silent Thief” as you age. Hence, it is concluded that through proper medication, physical measures like physiotherapy, exercise, physical rehabilitation, education, public health programs, osteoporosis prevention programs, this disease can be controlled.

By: Shanza Sahar, karachi.