"Building healthier lives, free of cardiovascular diseases and stroke." That is the mission of the American Heart Association. Many people know about the American Heart Association because of their recommendations for and approval of certain foods and activities that can help your heart and health. That being said, people don't really know much else about this organization.

The first heart association of any type was formed in 1915. It was called the Association for the Prevention and Relief of Heart Disease in New York City (American Heart Association, 2008). Their goal was to establish whether or not patients with heart disease could maintain a life despite their heart disease. The American Heart Association we know today came to be in 1924, under the collaboration of six cardiologists. Since then, the American Heart Association has come to be one of the most influential organizations in the country, especially since heart disease has affected such a large number of people.

These days, the American Heart Association recommends a healthy lifestyle and a very defined guideline of causes and prevention for heart disease and stroke. They recommend that people quit smoking, maintain healthy weight and a healthy diet, keep an eye on their cholesterol and blood pressure. They currently have all of their information on their website http://www.americanheart.org.

There are recommendations, established by the American Heart Association's guidelines, for living a heart-healthy lifestyle. This, for some people, includes changing a lifestyle to limit fat intake and sodium, and add in plenty of exercise and activity. They also inform people on their website that taking even just a few steps toward a heart healthy lifestyle are a big help and aren't that hard to do. Just adding in an extra 30-minutes of physical activity, even something as simple as walking, is recommended by the American Heart Association.

The AHA has definitely taken many steps towards making us a more heart-health-conscious country ever since it was first organized back in 1924.

References

American Heart Association. (2008). History of the American Heart Association. Retrieved February 17, 2008, from http://www.americanheart.org/p resenter.jhtml?identifier=1086 0.

Learn more about this author, April O'Keefe.
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