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A review by moseslh
The Blue Zones: 9 Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who've Lived the Longest by Dan Buettner
1.0
Clickbait in paper form.
While this book covers an objectively interesting topic and has a couple of good insights, it is also shallow, unscientific, and lacking in rigor. Buettner—a journalist, not a scientist—chose to write this book as a personal narrative about his time wandering through "Blue Zones" and talking with people, resulting in little more than anecdote and speculation.
I also take issue with the idea of creating a self-help book for individuals on the basis of the Blue Zones. The longevity in these areas is inherently the product of geography and culture, not individual decisions. Urban planners and zoning boards should study Blue Zones to create a geography and foster a culture that promotes public health (walkability, bike infrastructure, social infrastructure, "granny flats," community gardens), but I am doubtful that an individual could "create their own Blue Zone," given the complex nexus of external factors involved in that. This framing may sell books, but it's an intellectually dishonest way to frame the Blue Zone phenomenon. Individuals hoping to live healthier lives within an unhealthy culture should look to other people in their culture who manage to still be healthy rather than pastoralists in Sardinia who live an entirely different lifestyle that would be unachievable and undesirable in, say, an American urban setting.
While this book covers an objectively interesting topic and has a couple of good insights, it is also shallow, unscientific, and lacking in rigor. Buettner—a journalist, not a scientist—chose to write this book as a personal narrative about his time wandering through "Blue Zones" and talking with people, resulting in little more than anecdote and speculation.
I also take issue with the idea of creating a self-help book for individuals on the basis of the Blue Zones. The longevity in these areas is inherently the product of geography and culture, not individual decisions. Urban planners and zoning boards should study Blue Zones to create a geography and foster a culture that promotes public health (walkability, bike infrastructure, social infrastructure, "granny flats," community gardens), but I am doubtful that an individual could "create their own Blue Zone," given the complex nexus of external factors involved in that. This framing may sell books, but it's an intellectually dishonest way to frame the Blue Zone phenomenon. Individuals hoping to live healthier lives within an unhealthy culture should look to other people in their culture who manage to still be healthy rather than pastoralists in Sardinia who live an entirely different lifestyle that would be unachievable and undesirable in, say, an American urban setting.