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Join Our Prevention Nation
and Help Yourself Keep Healthy

You‘ve heard a lot lately about prevention and its impact on chronic diseases. Try to think of prevention this way…

Close your eyes and visualize the smiling face of someone you care very much about. Maybe it’s your partner in life, your child, a parent or a good friend. Their smile is a reminder about how much they need you and want you to take care of yourself.

You can understand now why you have a responsibility to become deeply committed to your own healthcare, if not for yourself than for the smiling face you just visualized. Please keep them smiling by practicing an "ounce of prevention " and by using the Prevention Tips below.

Go ahead, PUSH OUR BUTTONS

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Prevention Buttons

Find out Why, When and How to help prevent:

STOP SMOKING
If you are a smoker, or you know an ex-smoker, you probably know that trying to stop smoking is one of the hardest challenges you'll have to deal with in your lifetime. You already know why you should stop. Go to your self chec lung cancer (heart health) guide to find out what happens to your body as little as 20 minutes after you finally make the commitment to stop.

LOSE WEIGHT
Tipping the scale in the wrong direction can cause certain diseases and sometimes make you feel not very good about yourself. Check here for guidelines to determine your healthiest weight at:
AIM FOR FITNESS /Aim for a healthy weight

EAT RIGHT
Eating represents different things to different people. Learning to choose a sensible diet will not only make you feel better about yourself physically, but psychologically too. Check here for guidelines on how to practice good eating habits at:
AIM FOR FITNESS /Build a healthy base
AIM FOR FITNESS /Choose sensibly

EXERCISE
Exercise can keep your body healthy. That’s a fact. It can also make you feel better about yourself. Check here for guidelines on how to become fit and stay fit at:
aim for fitness /Be physically active each day

SUN SAFETY
Eliminate prolonged exposure to the sun and examine your body regularly for any new growths or changes on your skin. How to do this? Please refer to self chec skin cancer guide.

PRACTICE SAFER SEX
Protect your partner(s) and yourself. The information about safer sex practices may be confusing to you. You need to know that using condoms will not protect you from all sexually transmitted diseases (STD's), also you can still get pregnant and get AIDS. It's important to talk to your healthcare professional or doctor if you have any questions.

REDUCE ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION
Limit, or in some cases, eliminate alcohol consumption. The story about alcohol and how it can impact on your body in a negative or positive way, keeps changing. Use your good judgement and when in doubt, talk to your doctor or healthcare professional.

LEARN TO RELAX
Stress and anxiety can make you sick. Tell us your secret to relaxing; whether it's by sitting and reading a good book or any other method that works for you. We’ll share your idea with the folks that come to our site and hopefully it will help them, too.

If you have an inspiring "Sound Bite" story to share about becoming a "Quitter," "Scaling Down," or how you became a "Mover and Shaker" or "Shady Character" by "Protecting Your Partner" or "Chilling Out," and of course all done with "Less Wining," please email us at: STORIES@SELFCHEC.ORG so we can share them with the folks who come here looking for inspiration about keeping healthy.

CLICK HERE to let us know if you have any difficulty getting to any of the links on this page. Thanks.

IMPORTANT: The information on the cancer pages of this site was culled by the director of Self chec and initially reviewed by the folks at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based on the newest information from the national cancer advisory organizations, including, but not limited to, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and American Cancer Society. We recognize that the national cancer advisory organizations sometimes do not agree about specific cancer guidelines, often making it confusing to the public about what to do. That is why we are asking you to err on the side of caution by always consulting a healthcare professional to advise you in the healthy choices you will make. Thank you. This page was updated November 9, 2009

All Prevention images were lovingly created by Bascove
for the express use by Self chec. Images may not be reproduced
in any form without the written consent of Self chec.