by Kelly Rogge
Kansas City Kansas Community College’s Wellness and Fitness Center wants the campus community to celebrate Valentine’s Day a different way this year – by focusing on their heart health.
This is the third year for the “Have a Heart Healthy Valentine’s Day,” which will be 5:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 16, at the Wellness and Fitness Center on the KCKCC main campus, 7250 State Ave. There will be two Technogym recumbent bicycles provided for the event – one designated for KCKCC employees only and one for student and community member use.
“The purpose of hosting the Heart Healthy event at the KCKCC Wellness Center is to encourage students, employees and community members to participate in healthy activity for Valentine’s Day,” said Pam Hall, wellness specialist at the KCKCC Wellness and Fitness Center. “People usually start out the New Year motivated to include physical activity in their everyday lives then they fall off in February. This is an opportunity to team up and jump into some cardiovascular activity to celebrate Valentine’s Day in a healthy way.”
Those interested in participating can sign-up at the Wellness Center for a pre-determined time slot (30 minutes). The goal is to complete 15 hours of cardiovascular exercise during the event as well as to encourage KCKCC employees, students and community members to team up in an attempt to ride the most miles and expend the most calories on Valentine’s Day.
“February is also American Heart Month,” Hall said. “This a great month to encourage regular physical activity as a secret weapon against heart disease. Eighty percent of heart disease and stroke are preventable.”
Participants who complete their full 30-minute time slot will be entered into a prize drawing. The 30 minutes can only be completed within the designated time slot. Participants cannot go into the next time slot to accrue their 30 minutes. The 30 minutes is not required, but anything less will not qualify for the prize drawing.
“Preventing heart disease and stroke is important, and we encourage and educate people to make one healthy behavior change,” Hall said. “Once they are consistently adapting to that healthy behavior change, they can adopt another one and then disease prevention will follow. Healthy behavior could include increasing exercise, eating healthier fats and healthier diet, getting your cholesterol checked, losing weight and getting enough sleep.”
For more information or to register for the “Have a Heart Healthy Valentine’s Day,” call the Wellness and Fitness Center at 913- 288-7610 to see which time slots are available. Participants must be at least 18-years-old. Information is also available by contacting Pam Hall at [email protected].
Kelly Rogge is the public information supervisor at KCKCC.