Heart Foundation has partnered with TAL life insurance provider to educate young people on the importance of how their lifestyle choices can impact their heart health during national heart week.
Heart foundations State of Heart 2025 Survey found young Australians aged 18 to 34 believe heart disease is not something they need to worry about, despite evidence showing heart disease which presents later in life often begins developing as early as teenage years.
The partnership busts common heart health myths to help young people understand that protecting their heart health starts now.
Heart Foundation Head of Clinical Evidence Dr Danni Dougherty said in a media release discerning correct information can be difficult for young people.
“We live in an age where we are constantly consuming information and it’s becoming harder for young people to distinguish between what is real or fake and what they should and shouldn’t focus on for their health,” Dr Dougherty said.
“Through this partnership with TAL we are helping younger people understand the evidence and the science behind achieving good health, and how the choices they make now can affect them later in life.”
Making positive lifestyle choices such as exercising regularly, eating a healthy diet and limiting alcohol intake can reduce risks of heart disease. Smoking, an unhealthy diet, being inactive, and heavy drinking can impact heart health and increase risks of heart disease.
TAL general manager of health services Dr Priya Chagan said poor lifestyle choices in younger years can accumulate over time and impact health.
“Heart disease is something that you don’t always feel… often people won’t feel the impact until much later on in life,” Dr Chagan said.
“When you start feeling symptoms, the disease is actually quite far advanced. You only start feeling those symptoms later on in life, but that doesn’t mean it just started in your 40s and 50s. Those little changes that happened inside your body happened far earlier on.
“That’s why leading healthy lifestyles are important early on, and then getting those checks to make sure that if there are things like high blood pressure or high cholesterol, that you’re actually picking them up early, because they can be prevented and they can be reversed.”
Preventing heart disease starts with identifying risk factors and making positive lifestyle changes as most heart attacks and strokes can be prevented with healthy choices.
