March is another very busy month for health and wellbeing initiatives. Below is a list of the various campaigns.
- Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month: ovarian cancer is a disease where symptoms are subtle and often go unnoticed until the disease process is advanced. This makes it harder to treat successfully. The month-long promotion is organised by ovarian.org.uk. They are promoting a 295 000 Step Challenge to raise money for this charity.
- Prostate Cancer Awareness Month: 1 in 8 men in the UK will develop prostate cancer. The Prostate Cancer UK challenge is to walk 11 000 steps a day as a fund-raising exercise.
- Eating Disorders Awareness Week (01-07 March): this campaign is organised by beateatingdisordorders.org.uk; the focus of this year’s campaign is to create a future where people experiencing binge eating disorder are met with understanding and compassion.
- Endometriosis Awareness Week (03-09 March): this health initiative is marked on this week across the globe. It is estimated that symptoms of endometriosis affect 200 million people worldwide.
- University Mental Health Day 04 March: the focus of this day is student mental health. However, it is inevitable that student and staff mental health are interlinked in many ways and are related.
- World Salt Awareness Week (08-14 March): overuse of salt in our diets is implicated in many health problems. It is particularly associated with the development of high blood pressure and heart disease. The theme for this year, promoted by World Action on Salt is ‘More Flavour, Less Salt!’.
- National No Smoking Day: 10 March: this day, encouraging smokers to quit, has been a feature of the health promotion calendar since 1984! In the UK, it is now linked to the British Heart Foundation; more information on the reasons to give up smoking can be found on their website.
- World Kidney Day: 11 March: promoted by worldkidneyday.org.uk, this focus of this day is to spread awareness of how big an issue kidney disease is and how many people and their families are affected. 1 in 9 people worldwide suffer from kidney disease.
- Down’s Syndrome Awareness Week (15-21 March): promoted by the Down’s Syndrome Association, the theme for this year is celebrating all the different ways people are connecting. They are also running Challenge 21; this encourages people to challenge themselves with a new activity for the 21 days running up to World Down Syndrome Day on 21 March.
- World Sleep Day: 19 March: promoted by the World Sleep Society, this health promotion day runs globally. The theme for this year is ‘Regular Sleep, Healthy Future.’
- World Oral Health Day: 20 March: another global initiative. Good reasons to practice good oral health are to prevent tooth decay and gum disease. What is less well known is that poor oral and dental hygiene is linked to developing heart disease. The theme for Oral Health Day this year is ‘Be Proud of Your Mouth’; the video on their website alone is worth a look!
- Tick Bite Prevention Week 24-30 March: do you know anything about ticks and how they spread disease? Then maybe you should learn more in Tick Bite Prevention Week! Ticks are small, spiderlike, blood-sucking parasites that fasten themselves on to the skin of mammals, usually in the area of the feet and legs. This usually occurs when walking in the countryside in spring and summer. The ticks carry diseases which they pass to the host when they bite.