Doctor’s tips for better health have guests dancing in the aisles
Sometimes it’s difficult to host a fundraiser that’s informative and fun at the same time.
What often happens at these galas is that guests are mingling, eating and enjoying casual conversation, and then the chairman and other principals of the fundraiser rise to the podium for their speeches.
That’s when you can feel the evening’s energy begin to drop off.
This was not the case, however, at the recent “Girls’ Night In” event at Sprint Center, a celebration of women’s health and wisdom.
Presented by the Women’s Heart Program at the University of Kansas Hospital, the evening started out with a casual cocktail hour inside the Sprint Center’s VIP club. Then more than 900 women headed down to the floor of the arena for the evening’s program to begin.
The lights dimmed and the program began, but it was far from lackluster. Event chairwoman Sharon Lindenbaum served up humorous opening remarks, and then the featured guest, best-selling author and doctor Christiane Northrup, took the stage.
She combined comedy with vision and insight into women’s health and wellness and even had guests dancing in the aisles with feather boas to get her point across that joy brings wellness.
I especially liked the way she said that she had concentrated the first half of her career on everything that was wrong with women’s bodies. And now in the second half of her life, she’s concentrating on everything that can go right in the female body.
She talked about studies that showed an 85-year-old could think just as quickly as a 20-year-old under certain conditions and said women can improve their health and reduce their risk of heart disease through diet, exercise and experiencing joy on a daily basis.
“Joy and pleasure heal the heart,” Northrup said, adding that if you know angry people, stay away from them.
This fundraiser got the formula right for mixing fun with facts, and I left with a sense of mission and hope.
Christiane Northrup speaks at the “Girls’ Night In” event at Sprint Center.
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