Healthy Lifestyle Choices

FountainBlue's February 9, 2007 When She Speaks Women in Leadership Series event was on the topic of Healthy Lifestyle Choices.

Our panelists included Geetha Rao; Lisa Jing, HR Manager, Integrated Healthcare Initiative at Cisco; Julie Johnston, HR Benefits Manager at El Camino Hospital; Linda Williams, CEO of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte. And thank you to each of you, for your active participation in this event, which helped make it a success for everyone.

Below are comments and advice on making healthy lifestyle choices from our panel, and the collective wisdom of the audience.

Take responsibility for your physical and mental health

• Frame your thoughts without the 'shoulds' and 'supposed to's' imposed on us by others in our lives
• Proactively manage the stress in your life
• Anticipate the many small decisions we make day-to-day (like take the stairs or elevator; chips or salad; soda or water; portion size, etc.,) and consistently make the healthier choice.
• Arm yourself with facts so that you can make those right small decisions which can make such a big difference
• Be centered in yourself and your interests, values and needs and act based on your identified priorities. Recognize and accept that there may be trade-offs to making those prioritized choices.
• Choose regular exercise and make it a priority
• Make the time for yourself
• Meditate
• As women, our own personal needs come behind those of our children, our spouses, our parents, etc., Make taking care of ourselves as important as taking care of our careers. Be relentlessly assertive about your health and well-being.
• Practice safer sex and protect themselves against STDs because the consequences are often more severe for women
• Serve the community, give back. It provides fulfillment and helps provide balance in your life.

Support yourself and your family in making healthy lifestyle choices

• Encourage others in your life to take responsibility as well
• Encourage frequent 15-second hand-washing
• As a parent, become confident sex educators, as they are the preferred sex educators for our youth (first is parents, second schools, third is peers, fourth the media, but in actuality, the reverse is true). Help other parents do the same.
• Planned Parenthood's book, Let's Talk About S-E-X/ A guide for kids 9 to 12 and their parents might help us become more comfortable sex educators for our children. Order this book through Amazon.
• Be an advocate for HPV immunization for 9-12 year old children, which guards against 4 HPV viruses, which could lead to cervical cancer.

Corporations like Cisco take an active interest in the health and well-being of its employees and their families

• It supports the bottom line for corporations to proactively support its employees and families - 18% of the employee population spends 81% of the cost of healthcare for an organization, so proactively working with employees to head-off long-term health conditions and challenges is in the best interest of both the employer and the employee
• When employees have a better quality of life, they are happier, feel better, easier to work with, and more productive
• Visit http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/healthcare/index.html for more information.