ABUJA (Sundiata Post) – The President, Defence and Police Officers Wives’ Association (DEPOWA), Mrs Oghogho Musa, has advised wives of military personnel to engage in regular physical exercise and medical check-ups.
Musa gave the advise during the DEPOWA Aerobic and Walk for wives of military and Police personnel on Saturday, in Abuja.
She said the benefit of the exercise to health could not be over emphasised, adding that the medical screening conducted before the exercise, had enabled them to identify women that needed to take extra care of their health.
She urged them to be deliberate about their health care, to enable them stay healthy and fit to take care of the home front, while their husbands were away on duty.
“We must be deliberate about our health, we must take care of ourselves so that we will be able to take care of the home and everybody.
“This is why we are here today and we must take exercise as we eat food, because that is one of our food to the body.
“We must take our health very seriously and practice this daily.
“We can start 30 minutes walk a day, and then gradually you progress,” she advised.
The president of DEPOWA promised to sponsor 40 women to undergo pap smear (cervical cancer test), as part of the association’s efforts at curbing cancer of the womb (cervix) among the women.
Earlier, the Chairman, Health and Sports Committee of DEPOWA, Dr Juliette Ango, educated the women on the advantages of regular check up, was well as the dangers in not paying attention to their health.
Ango said that regular physical exercise, especially health walk, helped to prevent non-communicable diseases, such as hypertension, which she described as a silent killer.
She said that the medical screenings conducted before the walk, revealed that many women had high blood pressure, adding that such people had been referred for emergency attention.
“We have to cater for the home front as our husbands are busy, and if we drop dead now, it is not an attack, it is not witchcraft, but it is because we neglected to take care of our health.
“So we should take charge of our health by always checking our BP (Blood Pressure).
“If you don’t have blood pressure, at least you should check your BP once a month.
“But if you are hypotensive for any reason, because it is not only when you are sick that you can have hypertension, different reasons can make your blood pressure to spike high, check regularly.
“High blood pressure is blood pressure greater than 140/90. Some women or some people can have a normal blood pressure of 130/80 because of their age.
“Our BP should be at least 120/80 thereabouts. So having BP of 170/200 is sitting on a time bomb,” she said.
Ango also advised the women to also do regular checks on their breast, either through self examination or comprehensive test, known as mammograms, to prevent breast cancer, especially in women above 40 years of age.
“We have already demonstrated how to examine your breasts adequately, and even if you cannot, when you go to the hospital, the clinician can equally help to examine your breasts.
“These are things that we should not take for granted because cancer is real, the severe impact of hypertension is real, impact of diabetes is real, and luckily most of these are actually preventable if we take charge of our lives and be intentional about healthy lifestyles,” she added. (NAN)
