Paglia is passionate about an issue that is as sensitive as it is important: our heart health.
The 24-year-old Canada Bay Council Young Citizen of the Year nominee is a clinical researcher and medical student with a very specific mission: to improve the health outcomes of Australians, one book at a time.
With her love of writing and passion for children’s education, Alexia wrote her first book, My Strong Heart.
The book is aimed at children aged three to eight and looks to teach them healthy habits, promote a balanced diet and encourage young readers to get outside and be active in an effort to reduce the country’s high rate of cardiovascular disease, Australia’s biggest killer.
Paglia is currently in her first year of medical school at The University of Wollongong and has previously earned degrees in medical science and economics. She has work experience in biotechnology and clinical trials for cancer patients. She’s currently enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine and is happy to be studying once again.
Paglia’s nonna, Maria, passed on to her a great love of books and literature at an early age.
With a father from Naples and a mother from Calabria, Paglia is “extremely proud of my Italian origins”. For her, the Neapolitan dialect is much easier to understand than Calabrese.
The idea for the book came to her while she was working in the hospital system during the pandemic. She could see how a lack of understanding regarding health science was having a negative impact on people’s health.
“The spread of misinformation can be really damaging, 50 per cent of Australians have poor levels of health literacy,” Paglia explained.
“This can lead to poor overall health outcomes, and it really made me think about what I could do about it personally.”
Paglia says that research has shown that healthy behaviours adopted from childhood are strongly correlated to positive health outcomes in the future for children.
therefore, she wanted to create a book that would not only teach children how their hearts work, but also install healthy behaviours and a sense of responsibility for their own health in children.
“The book is all about teaching children how their heart works and how to stay healthy, increasing a sense of familiarity with the doctor’s office so that we can help kids feel more comfortable during the visit,” the author pointed out.
“And it encourages children to share their knowledge with other people to start creating a positive culture of health literacy.”
From here, the young Italian-Australian wants to create a series of books in the future to address other health-related topics.
