"Blue Zones" author Dan Buettner will speak at WVU Thursday (Nov. 2)
West Virginians are regularly bombarded with negative health statistics about our state – high rates of obesity, diabetes, and drug abuse, low participation in healthy activity, and on and on. Some West Virginia counties have a predicted life expectancy a decade or more less than the healthiest parts of the U.S.
What’s the path to a healthier life for all of us? Dan Buettner, author of the bestselling “Blue Zones” books, will speak at West Virginia University Nov. 2 to share his perspective, based on years of study in diverse regions across the globe where most people live long and healthy lives.
The talk, starting at 7:30 p.m. in the Mountainlair Ballroom, is part of WVU’s David C. Hardesty Jr. Festival of Ideas. The event will be webcast and will be followed by a book-signing session.
Buettner, a National Geographic Fellow, and his team have identified and studied communities whose elders live with vim and vigor to record-setting age. In his talk, he shares the nine common diet and lifestyle habits that keep people there spry past age 100. What should you be doing to live a longer life? Buettner debunks the most common myths and offers a science-backed blueprint for the average American to live another 12 quality years.
"Dan Buettner's central observation is that community and family provide the framework for connecting to others, to purpose and to hope,” said Clay B. Marsh, M.D., WVU’s vice president and executive dean for health sciences. “If health is a human experience, then let’s make West Virginia a Blue Zone of the future, filled with positive experiences of love, safety, purpose, deep connections and a mindset of abundance. It is our time to realize this great potential."
Buettner has worked in partnership with communities and institutions to implement the Blue Zone program in more than 20 cities so far.
Festival of Ideas was created in 1995 by President Emeritus David C. Hardesty Jr. It was inspired by events he organized as WVU’s student body president in the 1960’s. Today, the lecture series spans the academic year and brings a diverse group of news-makers, public figures and thought leaders—along with WVU’s own academic superstars—to engage the campus community in important issues of the day.
-WVU-
bc/10/30/17
CONTACT: Lisa Martin
Senior Special Events Coordinator
304.293.8021; lisa.martin@mail.wvu.edu