What if the (metaphorical) Fountain of Youth was right here in northern Michigan? It’s a question the Groundwork Center for Resilient Communities is hoping to explore next month with a community conversation event called “Living the Blue Zone Life in Northern Michigan.” Scheduled for November 20 at the Alluvion, the event will drill down on the idea that the Grand Traverse region might have what it takes to become globally renowned as a place where people can live longer, healthier lives.

What the heck is a “Blue Zone,” you might ask? The popular origin of the term dates back 19 years, to a November 2005 National Geographic cover story titled “The Secrets of Living Longer.” Written by journalist and explorer Dan Buettner, the article posited that certain parts of the world had shared attributes that made them statistically better for the longevity of the human life. Buettner called these areas “Blue Zones.”

“What if I said you could add up to ten years to your life?” Buettner wrote in the National Geographic piece. “A long healthy life is no accident. It begins with good genes, but it also depends on good habits. If you adopt the right lifestyle, experts say, chances are you may live up to a decade longer. So what's the formula for success? In recent years researchers have fanned out across the globe to find the secrets to long life. Funded in part by the U.S. National Institute on Aging, scientists have focused on several regions where people live significantly longer.”

Buettner’s initial research identified three Blue Zones: Sardinia, Italy, described as “a hot spot of longevity in mountain villages where men reach age 100 at an amazing rate”; Loma Linda, California, where researchers “studied a group of Seventh-day Adventists who rank among America's longevity all-stars”; and Okinawa, Japan, where senior citizens had drastically “fewer heart attacks than their U.S. counterparts and lower rates of breast and prostate cancer.”

Buettner’s work with Blue Zones didn’t end with the 2005 National Geographic cover story. In the wake of the article, he led research trips that identified similar longevity hot spots in areas like Ikaria, Greece and the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica. In 2008 he wrote a book, titled The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the Longest, which landed him high-profile TV interviews with the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Anderson Cooper. And last year, he was at the center of Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones, a Netflix miniseries.

According to Paula Martin, Groundwork’s community nutrition specialist, Buettner’s increasingly visible work around Blue Zones has made an impression on northern Michiganders. Since joining the Groundwork team in 2017, she’s fielded many questions about Blue Zones – and about whether the Traverse City area might be one.

“We definitely have a lot of the things that other Blue Zone areas have,” Martin says. “We have beautiful outdoor settings. We have lots of fresh, clean air and water. We have a bounty of local produce. We have wine. And we have a high percentage of senior adults now, and more retirees are moving from other areas to our region all the time. It’s clear that there’s something about this area that makes it feel like a good place to grow old.”

Blue Zones are defined through the “Power 9,” or the nine pillars that the areas “with the highest proportions of people who reach age 100” seem to have in common. Specifically, people in the longest-lived communities in the world move around a lot in the course of their day-to-day lives, live with a sense of purpose, adopt routines that minimize stress, eat in accordance with the “80 percent rule” (or until their stomachs are only 80 percent full), consume diets with a heavy “plant slant,” drink wine or alcohol “moderately and regularly,” belong “to some faith-based community” (though “denomination doesn’t seem to matter”), put their families and loved ones first, and “chose – or were born into – social circles that supported healthy behaviors.”

In hosting a Blue Zones event, Martin says Groundwork doesn’t have a specific goal or agenda. At this point, she’s not even sure what the process for becoming an officially recognized Blue Zone would look like. Mostly, Martin wants to start a conversation around the lifestyle habits that people can adopt individually to live happier, healthier, and lengthier lives – and about the systems or resources that could be put in place at a community level to make those habits more accessible to all.

“I think the equity piece is really something that we need to think about [when it comes to Blue Zones],” Martin says. “We have a lot of ‘haves’ in our area, but we also have a lot of ‘have-nots,’ and your zip code can absolutely define your health status. We have a foodie culture here, for instance, but we also have as high percentage of food insecurity, and that’s actually gotten worse since the expanded child tax credit went away. So, that equity aspect absolutely needs to be a part of this conversation.”

Living the Blue Zone Life in Northern Michigan is scheduled for 6-9pm on Wednesday, November 20 at the Alluvion. Martin says additional announcements about the event, including ticket sale details and information about the panelists who will be involved, will be made in the coming weeks.