Joan Lunden has always been passionate about health.
During her time as cohost of “Good Morning America,” she said she would “hog all the health stories.”
It’s no surprise that her advocacy in this space inspired her daughter, Jamie Krauss Hess, to become a health and wellness mentor.
“I grew up with a mother who was so really intentional about learning our health history, sharing it across the family,” Hess explained to KTLA 5’s Sam Rubin.
The mother and daughter are taking their family conversations public and bringing awareness to Family Health History Day. Now that the holiday season is upon us and we’re already spending time with family, the duo believes it’s the perfect time to ask them about their health.
“This is your opportunity to take them aside, don’t ask questions about their health in front of everybody else. Take them aside, and I always suggest taking out your phone, and start asking them about their lives,” she explained. “Then you say ‘I also want to make sure I take this opportunity to find out, were you ever diagnosed with polyps, and if so what age?’ A lot of relatives had these chronic diseases at a time it wasn’t talked about. Sometimes no one in the family knows and that can put you at risk. They can’t be taboo subjects.”
Hess and Lunden began their health campaign by talking about women’s health issues and bringing them to the forefront. One of the issues is a leaky bladder, also known as stress urinary incontinence (SUI).
Lunden talked about it in her book “Why Did I Come Into This Room?” and chalked the issue up to aging. However, her daughter realized she had the same issue as a young mother.
“I was running a half marathon with my husband and I looked up at him. And I said, ‘I’m peeing in my pants right now and there’s nothing I can do about it.'” Hess laughed. “We laughed at the time. But to be honest, it really wasn’t funny to me. It was a little bit embarrassing, a little bit shameful. I wasn’t sharing about it with my girlfriends and then I realized we have to start sharing this so we can do something about it.”
To help with this issue, Hess came across INNOVO, which are high-tech bike shorts that serve as a non-invasive product that “stimulates your body to do 180 perfect kegel exercises per session.”
One good thing about the product is that you don’t need a prescription from a doctor to get a pair of shorts.
“You can just go online to myinnovo.com and they’re sent to your house, they take your hip measurement, they get your size, they send them to your house,” Lunden further explained.
Customers just wear the shorts five days a week for 30 minutes a day. After 12 weeks of use, Hess said she’s one of the 87% of women who are now “leak-free.”
