Going red for women

I’m not normally into causes represented by ribbons. It’s not that I don’t support the fight, for example, against breast cancer – far from it. I do monthly self-checks and because of my family history, I had my first mammogram this past year. (If you have a family history like I do, you have no excuse. BE PROACTIVE.) That said, I do have a problem with cause marketing – containers or products that support some cause and almost kind of guilt you into buying them, but without telling you how much of your purchase (if any) is actually going to the cause they’re marketing. There are some real winners out there that genuinely do some good for the cause on their label. But because there are no real regulations in place for cause marketing, you could, in theory, paint the box for your product pink for breast cancer awareness, without a single dime actually going toward research or treatment. There’s nothing to prevent your company from doing that and profiting off of other people’s sympathy. I guess I just want to know, if I’m shelling out money to buy something specifically because it supports a certain cause, that my cause is actually going to get the cash. But I do have an exception to my own personal rule, and that’s going red for women. Maybe it’s because I know I don’t have to buy a product with a red container to do some good. Maybe it’s because my personal ties to heart disease are much more deeply rooted. Maybe it’s because heart disease is the number one killer of women. Whatever the reason, I feel much less duped by going red for women than I do by pink ribbon (or yellow, or green, or purple) campaigns. My mother died of heart disease when she was 59 years old. It’s not quite as simple as that – she battled heart problems on and off for the better part of 15 years, and also suffered a rare reaction to medication used after open heart surgery that severely damaged and weakened her lungs for the rest of her life. But when all was said and done, her ticker just couldn’t keep going. My mother was hardly the first person in her family to battle heart disease, and she probably won’t have been the last. My grandmother, her mother, died after her third heart attack. She was 64. My mother’s next-oldest sister died after her first heart attack, probably because she also was diabetic. My mother’s oldest sister was the last to die, and fought the most successful fight against the disease – she outlived all of them, making it to her early 70’s. But in my mind, it’s still far too young. My mother’s baby brother is her last surviving sibling. He also battles heart disease. Is it any surprise I’ve been known to joke with my doctor that I’m planning to bring in someone else’s family history on my next visit? I could wonder why I didn’t inherit the genes that better resemble my dad’s mother – who lived into her 90’s and finally succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease in December 2007 – or my mother’s father, who died of old age, also in his 90’s, having twice beaten colon cancer. But a more effective use of my time, I think, is to make sure I don’t leave my son, now 7, without a mom. I won’t lie. I fight a constant battle of my personal bulges. I even did something drastic this past fall – I stopped eating all meat for about three months in a bid to lower my cholesterol (it worked, but I’ve now added some meats back into my diet). I do have a few things going for me that my mother didn’t did – namely, that I don’t smoke and I never have. Trust me, I’m not going to start. But more importantly, I figure I honor her memory on Go Red for Women day, by breaking out a bright red outfit, something that’s so not me it probably does stand out to my friends and coworkers. It is, however, something my mother would have loved to do. She was the kind of person who liked to sparkle. Give her bright colors, a little bling, and she was a happy woman. So it serves two purposes for me. I can be with my mom in spirit for the day, by wearing her signature color, and I can tell other people about her. “What’s the occasion?” they’ll ask. That’s my opportunity to tell them about heart disease. Who knows? Maybe someone who would have otherwise ignored a symptom will get it checked out, just because I stepped out of my comfort zone and wore a red dress on a cold, February day. The American Heart Association recommends following the ABCs of Preventing Heart Attack and Stroke:

A: Avoid Tobacco
B: Be More Active
C: Choose Good Nutrition

It’s a daily challenge, but it’s so worth it, for the sake of my family, and its future history.