An Informative Evening for the Healthy Night Out with the Girls

An Informative Evening for the Healthy Night Out with the Girls

Participants showed up early to beat the weather on Thursday evening for Methodist Hospitals’ ‘Healthy Night Out with the Girls’ at the Northwest Indiana Breast Care Center in Merrillville. Once inside, the women were primped and pampered, leaving all worries of the cold behind.

This night’s focus was on heart health even though the Healthy Night Out with the Girls event is hosted by the Northwest Indiana Breast Care Center.

“Heart disease is the number one killer of women, more so than all the cancers combined,” said Dr. Jennifer Sanders, manager of the Northwest Indiana Breast Care Center.

The ‘Healthy Night Out with the Girls’is a quarterly event that began in 2012, and Methodist Hospitals has been inviting more and more women to try out the Breast Care Center. Each ‘Night Out’ event offers information on a different topic related to health, which helps motivate women to stay healthy and choose the facility as their main place for health information.

“We love that they come into a breast center for this,” Sanders said. “It’s great that they feel confident enough to come to a Breast Care Center to get it done.”

Attendees enjoyed refreshments as they received blood pressure screenings, BMI screenings, bone density screenings, chair massages, and hand massages. They were welcomed to try out different makeup and beauty products, have their heart and vascular disease risk assessment tested, and receive information about how to live healthier overall lives.

Mary Kay representatives helped attendees find a new lipstick color by offering “Lipology,” the “art of discovering one’s inner qualities by the configuration of the lips.” Kauffman Chiropractic, who attends these Healthy Night Out with the Girls events on a regular basis, once again offered five-minute chair massages, and Paul Mitchell cosmetologists donated the free hand massages with which attendees were treated.

This was Michiko Barber’s first Healthy Night Out. She saw the event on a flyer and was interested in what was offered. She commented, that she enjoyed the night’s activities and presentation.

Dr. Mihas Kodenchery gave a presentation about how heart disease is different for women than it is for men.

He explained how women may not experience the crushing chest pain that men do when they have a heart attack, so it is even more vital that women educate themselves about heart attacks and their symptoms.

“Women are more likely to die from a heart attack than men,” Dr. Kodenchery said. He then discussed ways of reducing the risk of an attack by telling the guests how regular and relaxed exercise is a good way to keep the heart healthy.

Dr. Valentin Drezaliu, a physician within the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department, co-presented the speech with Dr. Kodenchery, adding insight on ways to prevent heart disease.

He emphasized the preventative measures, like nutrition, exercise, consistently talking with your doctor, as well as other ways to keep healthy.

The topics may be scary and uncomfortable to talk about, but that is why Sanders, and her team at the Northwest Indiana Breast Care Center, holds these events. There are ways to inform women about the unpleasantness of possible diseases, but in a fun and educational way.

That’s what the Healthy Night Out with the Girls is all about. The massages and makeup are not entirely given for the fun of it. They are to remind women that even the littles act of self-care - whether it’s a massage or an extra serving of vegetables – goes a long way in terms of being healthy.

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