Dan Buettner at TEDMED 2011
Summary
TLDRIn this talk, the speaker discusses findings from his work with National Geographic on Blue Zones—areas where people live significantly longer. The key factors include plant-based diets, a sense of purpose, strong community ties, and an environment that promotes physical activity without formal exercise. He emphasizes that public health strategies often fail because they focus on individual responsibility rather than systemic changes. Successful long-term health improvements come from creating environments that make healthy choices easier, as seen in community projects in Minnesota and Scandinavia.
Takeaways
- 🌍 Geographic zones where people live measurably longer have been identified, such as Okinawa, Italy, and Costa Rica.
- 🌱 A plant-based diet high in beans and nuts is common among long-lived populations.
- 🍷 Moderate wine consumption, around two glasses per day, is associated with longevity, but binge drinking does not provide the same benefit.
- 🎯 A strong sense of purpose adds approximately seven years to one's life expectancy.
- 🙏 Being part of a faith-based community and attending four times a month can extend life by 4 to 14 years.
- 🚶♀️ Physical activity in these communities is not formal exercise, but part of their daily environment, burning more calories through non-exercise activity.
- ⚕️ Around 80% of chronic diseases are caused by lifestyle and environment, not genetics.
- 🔄 Diets and exercise routines often fail for the majority of people over time, highlighting the need for long-term lifestyle changes rather than quick fixes.
- 🏙 Environmental factors like easy access to physical activity and nutritious food, as well as social networks, play a key role in public health.
- 💡 Sustainable health interventions must focus on community-wide systems, not just individual responsibility, to create long-lasting improvements.
Q & A
What are the Blue Zones, and what common factors contribute to longer lives in these areas?
-Blue Zones are regions where people live measurably longer lives. These areas, such as Okinawa, Japan, and Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica, have common factors like plant-based diets, low intake of simple carbohydrates, consumption of beans and nuts, moderate wine intake, a strong sense of purpose, belonging to faith-based communities, and frequent physical activity through daily life rather than formal exercise.
Why does the speaker emphasize that no diet has worked for a significant proportion of people in the long term?
-The speaker points out that diets are generally ineffective in the long term because they have high recidivism rates. Most people who start diets fail to maintain them, with only a small percentage staying on a diet after several years. This highlights that short-term dietary solutions are not sustainable for long-term health improvements.
What is the significance of a strong sense of purpose in longevity, according to the speaker?
-The speaker mentions that individuals who have a clear sense of purpose and can articulate it tend to live about seven years longer than those who don't. This is a key factor contributing to longevity in Blue Zones.
How do faith-based communities contribute to longer lifespans?
-People who belong to faith-based communities and attend regularly, about four times a month, tend to live four to fourteen years longer than those who don’t participate. This social engagement and support system plays a crucial role in increasing life expectancy.
What is the role of physical activity in Blue Zones, and how does it differ from traditional exercise?
-People in Blue Zones do not exercise in the way we traditionally think of exercise. Instead, their environments encourage constant, non-exercise physical activities, such as walking and manual tasks, which result in them burning five times more calories through daily movement than the average person.
What is the speaker’s critique of public health spending in the United States?
-The speaker argues that the United States spends too much on treating diseases and not enough on prevention. Around 80% of diseases are driven by lifestyle and environment, but only 4% of healthcare dollars are spent on prevention, with 88% spent on treating problems after they occur.
Why does the speaker believe that individual responsibility is not enough for successful public health outcomes?
-The speaker suggests that focusing solely on individual responsibility doesn't work because people are part of a larger system. Long-term health improvements require changes in the environment and policies that make healthier choices easier, rather than relying on individuals to change their behaviors independently.
What successful public health initiatives did the speaker highlight from around the world?
-The speaker highlights two successful public health initiatives: the EPODE project in northern France, which reduced childhood obesity rates and maintained them for eight years, and a project in Scandinavia that reduced cardiovascular disease by 90% and sustained these results for decades.
How did the Albert Lea, Minnesota project implement changes to improve community health?
-In Albert Lea, Minnesota, the project focused on optimizing the environment, such as creating walkable paths, community gardens, healthier food options in restaurants, and policies in schools to reduce eating in classrooms. These changes helped increase physical activity, improve diet, and lower BMI in the community.
What is the speaker’s argument about why diets, exercise, and supplements are insufficient public health solutions?
-The speaker argues that diets, exercise, and supplements are insufficient because they don't have long-term adherence or widespread impact. Most people abandon diets and gym memberships after a short time, and while certain supplements can be beneficial, they don't achieve critical mass for population-wide health improvement. A broader, system-level approach is needed.
Outlines
🌱 Secrets of Longevity Revealed
The speaker, working with National Geographic, has spent a decade identifying regions where people live longer, known as Blue Zones. Across the world, in places like Japan, Italy, Costa Rica, and Greece, common lifestyle traits are found among these long-living populations. They share habits like plant-based diets, regular consumption of wine, and active lifestyles, but the most surprising findings are the benefits of having a strong sense of purpose and belonging to faith-based communities. These populations live longer without traditional forms of exercise, instead engaging in environments that naturally promote activity.
💪 Why Diet and Exercise Alone Won't Work
The speaker argues that diets and exercise, as traditionally conceived, are not effective for long-term health. Most people abandon diets and gym memberships within months or years. Instead of focusing on individual responsibility, efforts should target system-level changes. Many public health initiatives in the U.S. have failed because they rely on short-term interventions. The speaker cites successful long-term projects in France and Scandinavia that focused on changing the environment rather than expecting individuals to sustain healthy habits on their own.
🏙️ Optimizing Communities for Health
The speaker explains that most people live within a 'life radius' of about 20 miles around their homes, and it’s this environment that influences their health. Policies, infrastructure, and social networks all play a significant role. Simple changes like improving parks, creating safe walkways, and modifying social networks can increase physical activity by up to 40%. The focus should be on making healthier choices the easier option in the community, rather than expecting people to rely on willpower.
🏫 A Case Study of Albert Lee, Minnesota
The speaker shares the success story of Albert Lee, Minnesota, where community leaders adopted a health-focused blueprint. Experts helped the town create walkable environments, improve food options, and enact policies in schools to reduce childhood obesity. Changes like banning food in classrooms and designing paths around a local lake led to significant improvements in health. The experiment demonstrated that environmental changes, rather than individual efforts, were key to success, with media coverage and local involvement amplifying the results.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Blue Zones
💡Plant-based diet
💡Sense of purpose
💡Non-exercise physical activity
💡Chronic disease
💡Built environment
💡Social networks
💡Prevention
💡Silver buckshot
💡Life radius
Highlights
For over a decade, the speaker has worked with National Geographic to identify areas where people live longer, geographically defined and demographically confirmed.
Research shows that certain populations worldwide, like in Okinawa (Japan), Italy, Nicoya Peninsula (Costa Rica), and Ikaria (Greece), have common habits that contribute to their longevity.
A strong sense of purpose, which can be clearly articulated, is associated with living about seven years longer.
People who belong to faith-based communities and attend services four times a month live four to fourteen years longer.
None of the longest-lived people in the world engage in traditional exercise, but their environments encourage constant physical activity.
Chronic disease prevention is crucial; about 80% of what drives disease and costs is lifestyle and environment, not genetics.
Despite spending billions on health prevention in the U.S., focusing on diet and exercise hasn't produced long-term results for a majority of people.
Long-term strategies like diets and gym memberships fail due to high recidivism, with over 90% of people abandoning them within a few years.
Health initiatives in certain global regions, such as France's EPODE project and a Scandinavian program, successfully reduced chronic diseases like childhood obesity and cardiovascular disease.
Health interventions in communities need to address the system rather than focusing solely on individual responsibility.
Key influences on a person’s 'life radius' (about 20 miles from home) include local policies, the built environment, and social networks.
Making the 'active option' the easy option in communities can increase physical activity levels by 30-40% without the need for formal exercise programs.
Social networks play a critical role in health, with a strong correlation between your closest friends' health habits and your own.
Albert Lea, Minnesota, adopted a health blueprint that resulted in increased life expectancy, reduced obesity, and a 40% drop in healthcare costs for city workers.
America’s healthcare system spends disproportionately on treatment rather than prevention, with only 4% of healthcare dollars allocated to preventive measures.
The speaker advocates for a 'silver buckshot' approach, using multiple evidence-based strategies to improve health across entire communities rather than relying on individual changes.
Transcripts
[Music]
for the past ten years or so I've been
working with National Geographic to
identify geographically defined
demographically confirmed parts of the
area where people live measurably longer
these are populations not just
individual experience tens of thousands
of people in most examples and then
working with other experts to find their
common denominators I wrote this up in a
book called Blue Zones you don't have to
buy the book because in the next 90
seconds I'm going to tell you all the
essential secrets no matter where you go
in the world whether it's Okinawa Japan
certainiy Italy the highlands Nicoya
Peninsula Costa Rica the Katya Greece
I'm on the seventh-day adventists you
see the same nine things happening over
and over and over among the longest live
people a lot of these things are very
intuitive eating a plant-based diet lo
and simple carbohydrates high in things
like beans and nuts the ever-popular
prescriptive to have a couple glasses of
wine a day and no you can't save up all
week long and have 14 on the weekends
people actually ask me that but the
really cool findings come from the
counterintuitive things you do you know
that people who have a strong sense of
purpose and can articulate it live about
seven years longer than people who don't
people who belong to a faith-based
community and actually show up four
times a month lift four to 14 years
longer than people who don't and none of
the longest-lived
people in the world and I interviewed
253 of them ever exercise in the way we
think of exercise they did however live
in environments that constantly nudge
them into physical activity they burnt
about five times as many calories as we
do in non exercise physical activity
they lived anywhere from 7 to 11 years
longer than we did with a fraction of
the rate of chronic disease these are
populations one of them is even an
American population that was a decade
longer than the rest of us but as you
know you can tell people all day long
the things they ought to do to live
longer and to be healthier but how do
you actually get a population to do them
we spend almost a
trillion dollars a year and largely
preventable diseases cancer diabetes
heart disease largely preventable
diseases but I assert we not only are
spending too much but we're aiming at
the wrong target if you look at what
really drives disease and costs in this
country about 80% of it is lifestyle and
environment only about 10% is genes this
is on a population as a whole and
healthcare accounts for another 10% of
it but now look at the way we spend our
money this incidentally comes from the
CDC we spend only about 4% of our our
healthcare dollars on on prevention and
then we spend 88 percent of them on
cleaning up the problem if the problem
has happened we're aiming at the wrong
target instead of the downstream
problems we should be aiming at what to
do before they happen I think most of us
know that we do spend over a hundred
billion dollars a year on prevention so
you may say Dan you know we're are an
overweight population here in America we
don't move enough we nudists we should
be focusing on diets and exercise and
supplements the problem is by and large
they don't work when you think of things
that are going to truly add to longevity
to truly lower your chances of getting a
chronic disease you cannot think in
months or in years you have to think in
decades or a lifetime so you say well
diets a pretty good idea but no diet in
the history of the world has ever worked
for a significant proportion of people
who started we could come up right now
we could spend the next three days and
come up with the TEDMED diet the best
minds on the planet when it comes to
medicine come down and come to Ted come
up with a TEDMED diet we get mark up
here and J up here and we do a man hug
and we get people all pumped up about it
but the reality of diets if a hundred
people start a diet 'day within seven to
ten months you'll lose 90 of them and
within the next two years you'll lose
all but about
percent of them so when it comes to a
long-term strategy diets don't work no
diet in the history of the world
exercise has a similar recidivism curve
we were able to find data on gym
memberships on out of a hundred people
who start a gym membership today in
three years you'll learn lose about 90
percent of them this is a bit of a
heresy I know but when it comes to
public health exercise just isn't
working the average American only burns
100 calories per day engaged in willful
physical activity exercise supplements
whether they're medicinal or
nutraceutical about the same thing we
may say Stanton's and aspirin are really
good for people to take but you don't
get a critical mass you don't get enough
people taking them over time so based on
these findings I went back to National
Geographic and I proposed another blue
zone type worldwide search but this time
I wanted to find communities that were
unhealthy and got themselves healthier
and God blessed that rectangular yellow
heart of National Geographic they funded
me one all over the world and found out
two remarkable things number one of the
tens of millions of dollars we spend on
public health and different initiatives
for that Amed chronic disease none of
them have worked there's one in
Minnesota the heart healthy there's the
one in Stanford Connecticut another one
in California what happens is more or
less the health care equivalent of the
Hawthorne effect as long as the experts
are there paying attention and the TV
cameras are rolling people will do what
they ought to do but as soon as they
leave people revert back to their
baseline so as a long-term strategy it
just the simply don't have them worked
here in America there are two places in
the world where projects have started
out with unhealthy people and made their
populations healthier one in France
northern France the e-poll project
brought down the rates of childhood
obesity and maintain them for eight
years and the
second place was in Scandinavia they
brought down the rate of cardiovascular
disease by 90 percent and maintained it
for decades and I was able to spend
several months with these projects and
really take a look at how they executed
them how they made them work and I
realized that the essence of their
success hinged on a tenant that's very
different than that attendant many of us
subscribe to these projects did not rely
on individual responsibilities to be
successful they didn't look at you and
say it is up to you to get yourself
healthier they realized that we're all
part of a system and you need to address
the system so based on that I used some
of the money of that grant to hire who I
think are the greatest experts in
America when it comes to optimizing an
American system this by the way is not a
program it's not a template it's an
operating system it's a way of thinking
and I pulled together six people from
various different disciplines to help me
think about how do you optimize an
American community for health and our
first finding was that we all live in a
life radius we most of us spend about
80% of our lives within about 20 miles
of our homes and works so that's the
area that we're trying to make better
now what sorts of things influence a
life radius well number one you have
policy is it easy to smoke in this
community
can i smoke indoors and out is soda pop
and salty snacks are they cheap do day
care centers allow the licensed daycare
centers allow little kids to watch TV
before age - is there an opt-in or
opt-out policy when it comes to organ
donation state these things make a huge
difference on a statewide level the
built environment is it easy to walk
downtown our parks neat and alluring is
it safe you know the number one
inhibitor to old people going out and
getting extra
the perception of safety doesn't even
have to be safe just cleaning up
cleaning up graffiti will get more older
people out Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation found that if you can just
make the after active option the easy
option in communities you raise the
physical activity level of that
community by thirty to forty percent no
gym memberships no yoga classes no AB
master just make the active option the
easy option social networks another
thing that you can modify at an
environment if your three best friends
are obese is a hundred and fifty percent
better chance that you'll be overweight
how do you help people optimize their
social networks or expanded if necessary
then there's structures we spend our
daily life's in schools restaurants you
know we eat out a hundred and ten times
a year you could have a perfect kitchen
but if if you're eating out a third of
the time in places where they're over
serving you it for every meal there's a
problem there schools workplaces and
then sense of purpose how do you in view
people with a clear idea of what their
values are and what they're good at and
give them an outlet so this was a nice
theoretical construct this is where we
got the name silver buckshot
evidence-based ways unleash him on an
environment well thanks to AARP and the
University of Minnesota School of Public
Health we got another big grant to
actually audition five cities and come
into the city most ready to adopt this
blueprint Albert Lee Minnesota one and
they mainly one because the mayor the
city manager the head of public health
the superintendent of schools had a
Chamber of Commerce signed a pledge
saying we're on board for changing the
environment our experts came in and we
just listened we found out for example
that they wanted to widen Main Street
and raise the speed limit something that
we believe would tear the social fabric
in half instead we convinced them to use
some of that money to create one walking
vector from every neighborhood downtown
there was a beautiful place to
recreative on this beautiful lake but
you couldn't get around it so we took
some of the street Wyatt E money and we
created a path which is now full
all the time optimizing the built
environment we built for community
gardens this is a city of only 19,000
people dr. Brian Watson came in and
helped us optimize food environments do
you know the one adjectives that most
assures that you will not order an
entree on a menu the healthy choice
nobody wants a damn healthy choice they
want something good adjectives like
crispy and fresh will get people eating
the same food that was otherwise
mislabeled we have dozen tweaks we can
do to restaurants when in all the
grocery stores got them to flag healthy
foods and even create checkout lanes
where the impulse buys were all healthy
we went in all seven schools and got
them to adopt nine policies the most
powerful one of which a simple policy
that prohibits kids from eating in
classrooms and hallways that one policy
alone much more impactful than whatever
you put in the school lunch that one
policy alone will lower the BMI of that
school by about 11% and it's permanent
we went into about half the workplaces
appeal to individuals and got them to
sign a pledge to make permanent changes
to their homes everybody took a risk a
risk assessment longevity compass we
call the vitality compass so we could
get a baseline we got them to do
permanent things like grow gardens let
our experts come into their kitchens and
trade out the 14 inch blades for 10 inch
plates and do things like put signs on
the counter reminding people to pre
plate their food those two habits alone
equate to about a twenty to thirty
percent fewer calories in any given
sitting and then we went and helped
people optimize their social environment
we took the people or ready to change
their behaviors and fostered long-term
friendships with them over the course of
18 months we got phenomenal media
coverage USA Today Good Morning America
Nightline
Walter Willett the Dean of Harvard
School of Public Health came in and
wrote a two-page story on our on our
little experiment and found the results
stunning
US News and World Report's came in a
year and a half later and found out that
everything we put in place was still
working and then our numbers I think
mirrored the success of the idea
people's life expectancy went up
people's weight went down and there was
a 40% drop in city workers health care
cost that ladies and gentlemen is where
the rubber hits the road I don't have to
tell this audience that we have a
healthcare problem in our country 68% of
us our beefs are overweight and that
numbers going up along with cost
diabetes is on the way up and for the
first time in living history life
expectancy of our children is supposed
to go down is that because we're stupid
or if somehow undergone a degradation of
our moral character or we have less
discipline or love our children less
than our grandparents or kids did now we
live in an environment of ease and
abundance we are evolutionarily
hardwired to crave fat and to crave
sweetness and to crave rest when we can
get it but we cannot go to a pharmacy to
fill up our car with gas to rent a DVD
without being routed through a gauntlet
of salty snacks or sugar sweetened
beverages every single day 278 images
rinse over our brain telling us to buy
it stuff we largely don't need and to
eat food that isn't all that good for us
raise your hand if you walk to school
when you're a kid go ahead rage and look
around almost every hand is up now raise
your hand if your children walk to
school 1970 50% of American children
walk to school we're now down to about
10% just engineered three miles of free
physical activity out of kids is daily a
weekly life when it comes to making this
country healthier and getting health
care cost under control there is no
silver bullet
it's silver buckshot its unleashing
evidence-based long-term ways to change
people's environments and it's doing it
one ready community at a time thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
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