Coronary Heart Disease and Its Relationship to a Healthy Diet

For our Global Perspectives project, we chose the topic Disease & Health, more specifically, Coronary Heart Disease and its relationship with healthy eating. According to CDC, Coronary Heart Disease, also known as CAD, is the leading cause of cardiovascular death in the world, resulting in an annual death toll of 370,000 people worldwide. It is caused by restricted blood flow or blockage in arteries, which leads to insufficient oxygen supply. Although this disease is prevalent globally, only a small fraction of people are well-educated on the topic, and aware of the causes and steps you can take to prevent it.

My group consisted of four people: Heather, Henry, Marcus and myself. Our cultural backgrounds were quite similar, as we all had Chinese familial relations and culture. However, upon taking a personality test, we came to the realisation that the four of us were very distinct, contrasting personalities. To begin with, I thought this would be beneficial to our group, as we all had different strengths and were therefore able bring different contributions and insights to our project, allowing us to gain a well-rounded outlook.

On the contrary, this also meant that we frequently had trouble making major decisions. We struggled on agreeing on the topic. We all had various opinions; we found it difficult finding a common idea. For example, Marcus was very interested in the housing problem in Macau, China whilst I wanted to investigate migrant education. As a result of this, I made a mind map to record everyone’s preferences and link them to an overarching topic.

Get quality help now

Bella Hamilton

Verified

Proficient in: Dieting

5 (234)

“ Very organized ,I enjoyed and Loved every bit of our professional interaction ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

This ensured that the topic of choice was something we were all passionate about.

Our original course of action was to conduct weekly lessons at local migrant schools to spread knowledge and awareness of CHD and its risk factors. This would allow us to reach out to our local community directly. By educating younger children, the children would grow up with a mentality of healthy eating. Unfortunately, this would limit our results as we would only be able to visit one school per week. On the other hand, if we spread our message through social media, we could reach a wider and global audience, having a more widespread effect and impact more people. This would also have a long-lasting outcome, as our website and social medias will still be available for viewing even years later.

As a result of this, we created accounts on several media platforms, such as TikTok, Instagram, Youtube, SNS and a website. Every week, we wrote articles on CHD or posted healthy recipe alternatives and more. We talked about foods that would alleviate the burden of CHD and even posted our own recipe videos. This earned a huge positive reaction. By December 20th, our Instagram account had 150 followers and our TikTok food videos had an average of 142 views. Moreover, our website had been viewed by people from 5 different countries. In total, we had 122 views. The wide range of countries of our viewers displays the global effect our project achieved.

Coronary Heart Disease is a massive issue globally. It falls into the category of CVDs, which is the number one cause of death and one of the largest contributors to the global epidemic in chronic diseases (Yeates 2015). Risk factors of CHD include unhealthy diets, smoking and lack of exercise. The global expansion of tobacco trade has increased rate of smoking immensely (Reddy). The countries most at risk generally include North America and Eastern European countries, such as Russia, where the general diet is heavily reliant on fats and proteins.

On a local spectrum, China’s CVD rates were rising drastically. We conducted a survey on our friends and families and our results supported this. Out of the 96.3% who claimed they’d heard of Coronary Heart Disease, only 50% correctly identified the risk factors associated. In addition to this, 71.5% claimed that they found eating healthy more difficult than exercising. This supports our conclusion and motivated us further to make healthy diets more accessible. Furthermore, a staggering one third of the world’s smokers are Chinese (WHO). This makes them more vulnerable and prone to CHD.

I learned of CHD in Biology class. I had heard of it previously but, like many others, was not familiar with the disease. After learning about it, I became increasingly alarmed by the fatality of CHD and the ignorance of the public. The methods of prevention are extremely simple. My family is very concerned with health and eating, therefore I was raised with healthy food. It shocked me that so many others were completely unaware, which propelled me to conduct this project in hope that I could help others gain a better understanding.

As a group, we were quite successful. Even though we routinely got off topic, we made up for this after school. Once we settled on a plan, the project ran smoothly. Most of us were willing to dedicate weekends to maintaining our social medias and even meet up to film videos, but the effort of individual members fluctuated. The absences of members due to extracurricular commitments also hindered our progress. Marcus conducted the survey, Heather ran the Instagram and Henry documented our progress on Powerpoint.

I designed the website, gathered research information and filmed videos for our social medias. Generally, I feel that I contributed a lot to the team. I was proactive and organised in our group chat. However, I could have been more productive and active in discussions during class hours and I should have continued my work when I was sick and missed school for a week. I learned not just about CHD, but about collaborating in a group, working together with others and taking charge when it was necessary.

To conclude, we worked well together. We supported each other and accomplished a lot, despite our disorganisation. Our outcome and effect could’ve been more hands-on and direct and we should’ve advertised more, enabling us to reach a wider audience.