Blue Zones- ever heard of them?
I’ve personally been following journalist Dan Buettner since his first Ted Talk in 2009 on the ‘Blue Zones’.
Blue Zones are 7 regions around the globe where people not only live the longest but thrive at it based on a few key principles:
- Natural movement
- Right outlook ->including having a purpose and downshifting
- Eat wisely ->stopping at 80% full, plant slant focus and wine @ 5
- Connecting with your loved ones, belonging to a community, and having the right tribe
Pretty sound, sensible advice. I was in, hook, line, and sinker.
Since Buettner’s original talk, he’s created a Blue Zone empire of websites, books, recipe books, magazines, communities, and the latest new Netflix series titled ‘Live to 100.”
In our modern society, there isn’t much that doesn’t come with controversy, even the Blue Zones. The complaints and skepticism are varied:
- Is the data flawed, has it been cherry-picked or misinterpreted?
- Age verification is challenging without birth certificates.
- Are all the Blue Zones really vegans?
- Is there a lack of a solid scientific foundation?
One study suggests the records in some of the blue zones aren’t kept particularly well, citing fraud and data error might mean age and longevity rates are inflated.
- Most centenarians would have been born before birth certificates were in place.
- Longevity rates in many of the original ‘Blue Zones’ are actually decreasing, some say due to the influx of Western society ways and foods. And these rates are rivaled by numerous other communities that promote a fat-heavier diet.
Diet remains one of the biggest arguments and it’s complicated. There is no ‘one-size-fits-all” diet.
- Buettner is a vegan and promotes this lifestyle in his books and recipes. Yet we know that most of the regions do eat meat and fish.
- Every region survives on what is available to them and most use seasonally grown, relatively inexpensive plants as staples.
- Diet plays a part in longevity, but other lifestyle factors {together} may actually play a bigger role!
“We are victims of our environment….We’ve engineered most of the physical activity out of our lives.”
Dan Buettner
Even amongst the skepticism, there is so much I do agree with. I recommend using the Blue Zones as a source of inspiration and valuable insights.
Live intentionally with daily movement, eat sensibly, mindfully, at a table, with a bounty of plants, and not too much or too often, find your tribe/community and your sense of purpose, and learn to manage stress …. not just for longevity, but also for thriving in the present.