Fifty women who work in the community sector attended an educational day at the Blue Mountains Community Hub in Springwood on December 7.
The event focused on well-being in the workplace for women, with a particular emphasis on women’s hearts.
“Heart disease in women has been less researched than it has been in men, yet it is the single leading cause of death for both men and women in Australia,” said Angela Hehir from the Heart Foundation.
She stressed the importance of GPs getting on board with offering women heart health checks once they turned 45 or earlier in specific cases. She also said women could prevent heart disease in many cases, once they had worked out what their individual risk was, by changing lifestyle behaviours such as stopping smoking, increasing physical activity and eating a healthy diet.
Mary Jo McVeigh, a specialist in emotional and psychological well being for caring professionals and organisations, spoke about self care practices that can sustain workers to continue to provide high quality services to clients. Kaiya Seaton, a naturopath, spoke about nutrition with an emphasis on the Mediterranean diet as a means of increasing health.
Participants were able to take back many new initiatives to implement in their workplaces.
The day was presented by the Blue Mountains Women’s Health and Resource Centre in conjunction with the Nepean Blue Mountains Local Health District, Mountains Outreach Community Services, Thrive Services and Mountains Community Resource Network. The event was supported by a ClubsGrant through Katoomba RSL and the Heart Foundation.
