Know Your Number? Not This One‪!‬

I'M JUST BARELY OLD ENOUGH to remember the ads, and I never really understood why the celebrity, spokesperson was thought to be a celebrity, but I still remember the punch line--"I always know my number. Now you need to know yours." The so-called celebrity was Jimmy the Greek, a famous gambler. The number Jimmy wanted us all to know was our blood pressure. At the time, in the 1970s, blood pressure was a pretty obscure test. Most adults had likely had their blood pressure taken at one time or another, but they didn't know what doctors did with that information, and certainly didn't think they needed to know the information themselves. The point of the "know your number" advertisement was to create public awareness of blood pressure results as something that people who cared about their health should know. And, to educate the public that, if the number was too high, it was a sign of being at risk for a stroke or other health problems. Those ads worked! I know my most recent blood pressure reading and I'll bet that most of you reading this article also know your typical blood pressure reading. What's the point of all this knowledge? The numbers provide information about the state of our overall health, and if the numbers creep up too high, we can take steps to improve our overall health by reducing our blood pressure.