Overview:
Canadian Affairs has been taking a critical look at five Canadian cities to see how they stack up as Blue Zones. Simply put, Blue Zones are places where people eat simple food, move a lot during their days and live close to loved ones with whom they eat, laugh and perhaps pray.
Help locals “achieve their best, healthiest, fullest self.”
That’s the role of a public health agency. And Dr. Nicola Mercer, the medical officer of health for Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph, should know. She is responsible for the health of the 300,000 people who live in this region west of Toronto.
We are talking about how the region compares to the Blue Zones, those five places in the world where people routinely live to 100, enjoying good health to the end.
“Lots of [elements of the] Blue Zones resonate with public health,” Mercer said. She particularly agrees with the concept of making the healthy choice be an easy choice, which is the common element among Blue Zones and what municipalities aim for when they work to incorporate the qualities of the Blue Zones.
In fact, “make the healthy choice the easy choice” is a principle Mercer and her colleagues kept in mind when they recently revamped their public health plan.
Mercer points to active and safe routes to school. “Parents won’t let their children walk to school unless they are sure it’s safe.” Municipalities have found safety is the number one consideration for parents, more important than the weather, even. Making walking to school the easy choice thus requires making it the safe choice.
If school kids get used to walking to school, it can provide good grounding for life-long healthy practices. That’s another element of the Blue Zones: embedding movement in your day, as opposed to going to a gym several times a week. Guelph school children who walk to school have that in common with the fishermen of Icaria, Greece, and the shepherds of Sardinia, Italy, both Blue Zones.
The other Blue Zones are: Okinawa Prefecture, Japan; the Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica; and Loma Linda, California. Some find the healthy choice is the easy choice because of the remoteness of their location. Loma Linda achieves Blue Zone results because 9,000 Seventh Day Adventists live there and tending to their health is a tenet of their faith. They don’t smoke, drink or eat meat, and they move a lot throughout their day.
Other Blue Zones may not practice vegetarianism, but meat is generally not a large part of their diet. Simple foods such as whole grains, vegetables and fruits are.
Many of the other Blue Zones drink wine, often taking their meals with friends and family. The Costa Rica Blue Zone is noted for its laughter and good times. The one in Japan is noted for locals who have found purpose to their lives.
The elements Guelph has in common with the Blue Zones don’t end with children walking to school. Mercer’s health unit has a plan to get adults moving, too. “We know people are more likely to walk if they have somewhere to go,” Mercer said. The city has bike lanes that are planned to go someplace specific. “Then they are well used.”
That is how the lanes’ success is measured: less in terms of miles and more in terms of being designed for safety and people’s comfort in using them, she said.
Guelph has installed barriers to protect bike lanes or keep them off-street all together. “We are on a mission… a plan,” Mercer said. Projects are done year by year, building on what’s come before. “As the city grows and changes, you need to continually [ask], ‘have you designed them to be a base for what’s to come next?’”
But sometimes life can throw a spanner in the works and things change, sometimes drastically. That is not always a bad thing, Mercer says.
Take for example how the world learned about having groceries delivered during the pandemic. That can solve the problem of food deserts. Food deserts are neighbourhoods — often low-income ones — without grocery stores, which leave people little choice but to buy unhealthy food from smaller, closer stores.
This is not a large problem for Guelph, which has slightly higher education and income levels than the average city, Mercer says. But the community still has areas where people “struggle to get to a grocery store.”
The placement of grocery stores is not something health units, even the most motivated ones, can control. “That’s up to the builders of grocery stores,” Mercer said dryly, adding that non-governmental organizations often try to fill the gap.
But having groceries delivered is a solution no one paid much attention to before the pandemic. “Delivery has leveled the playing field a bit,” she said. “Maybe it’s less important to have a grocery store in every neighbourhood now.”
It does raise the issue of access to computers and delivery fees, but “if we manage properly, [there can be] equitable, equal accessibility.”
The last Blue Zone pillar Mercer talks about is social cohesion. Its importance “is very underestimated in North America,” she said. “And it is very important, social engagement, especially as we age.”
She ponders how to measure it. “It’s probably very culturally related… The city has many religious associations. But are they well attended?… Is that a measure?… Is it changing over time?”
It’s something individuals should pay attention to and monitor. “We mustn’t let the online world destroy our personal world,” Mercer said.
Of all the elements that make a Blue Zone a Blue Zone, good times with others may well be the most important. And it is the one people may have the most control over. As Mercer would say, it’s an important part of achieving our best, our healthiest and our fullest self.
