Have you ever heard of “Blue Zones”?
These pockets of the world are known for having citizens who live extremely long, healthy lives.
Some of these locations may sound familiar:
Okinawa, Japan (home of Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid!). Sardinia, Italy. Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica. Ikaria, Greece.
These locations have a higher percentage of people living longer because of their diet of local whole foods, high vegetable consumption, low incidence of disease, rich social interactions, low stress, and plenty of physical activity.
Books, documentaries, and countless news articles have championed these societies, and millions upon millions of health-conscious people have modeled their lifestyles around how these people live.
It just exists a problem with this amazing story.
It’s actually not true.
The first Ig Nobel Prize in Demography
Last month, Dr Saul Justin Newman was awarded the first ‘Ig Nobel Prize’ in Demography.
These awards are presented annually for scientific research that “makes people laugh and then think.”
For this particular award, Newman was recognized for debunking almost all of the findings of any study on the Blue Zones.
Here’s what Dr. Newman discovered:
“Higher age attainment rates are predicted by high poverty, lack of birth certificates and fewer 90-year-olds.
Poverty and pressure to commit pension fraud have been shown to be excellent predictors of reaching age 100+ in a way that is ‘the opposite of rational expectation’.
It turns out that most of the “very old, healthy” people in those blue zones were just a result ,very poorly kept records, pension fraud and outright lies,.
Let’s take a look at what is actually happening in Okinawa:
“Despite the fact that vegetables and sweet potatoes are promoted as key ingredients in Okinawa’s ‘Blue Zone’ diet, according to the Japanese government, Okinawans eat the fewest vegetables and sweet potatoes in Japan and have the highest body mass index.”
Oooooh. So what the hell do we do now!
Beware of anecdotal accounts that make dramatic promises
Spend enough time on social media and you’ll come across people telling you to eat only meat, cut out carbs completely, how “this one supplement saved their life” or that XYZ cured their disease, etc.
These anecdotal stories, especially when they have a villain, a victim, and a heroic story of overcoming adversity, are incredibly powerful. They are also often used to sell you a solution in pill or powder form.
The good news is that our data is constantly being improved by science.
We don’t actually we need to know what Okinawans eat, nor do we need to study the daily habits of a particular community in Costa Rica.
Don’t get me wrong, I also love a good whimsical story about the customs of a faraway land, but it still comes back to reality and science!
And we can remember to do our best for our particular situation. This may include ,treatment,may include ,weight loss medication,it might just involve focusing on sleep right now!
That is up to us to decide and we can do it with confidence. Not because it’s happening in Costa Rica or Greece, but simply because it’s what’s best for us.
Here are some of the ways we can positively influence our lifespan and/or health.
Yes, some of these things are part of the “Blue Belt Diet”… just without the hype and retirement scam.
And many of these may be out of our control!
For example, ,social determinants of health, (economic stability, access to health care, education, our neighborhood) are strongly associated with all-cause mortality, and many of these may not be available to large portions of the population.
Life is messy
I don’t mention all of this to tell you to avoid a Blue Zone diet.
Well, you could do a lot worse than eating a Mediterranean diet! Naturally you’ll likely lose weight and feel healthier if you eat mostly fresh fish, whole foods, and vegetables.
I mention all this to remind you that life is messy.
A long healthy life is a combination of dozens of interrelated things (such as those listed above), thousands of decisions made during our lifetime, plus things like genetics, society and luck! What works for one person may not work for the next, and there is no “one size fits all” diet to our problems.
We could get hit by a bus tomorrow, be diagnosed with cancer despite “doing everything right,” or experience a ,horrific accident that changes everything, since a week.
So instead of chasing immortality through sensational anecdotes or getting caught up in the latest Social Media trend…
We can keep our focus on things that we feel very confident will make us better tomorrow than we are today.
Like the things on the list above! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go do push-ups, eat a vegetable, and take a brisk walk while I call a friend.
-Steve
PS Hat tip to my friend Jodi Ettenberg, whose heartbreakingly powerful story of acceptance I linked above. it was ,her newsletter, which led me to this article!
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