The Blue Zone Project®: Noth­ing but blue skies for Naples and The Arlington

Posted Oct 14, 2022

Naples, Flori­da is on or near the top of a lot of lists: Best Places to Live, Best Places to Retire. Safest Place to Live. Fastest-Grow­ing City. Sun­ni­est Places on Earth. And Best Beach­es. These are just some of the acco­lades our beau­ti­ful city has earned.

And now, there’s anoth­er list-top­per: Blue Zones Com­mu­ni­ty. As of August 22, 2022, South­west Flori­da is a cer­ti­fied Blue Zones Com­mu­ni­ty® – one of the few in the U.S. to achieve this mile­stone. And Naples has been part of this impor­tant health ini­tia­tive since 2015.

Bluezones logo

A ​“Blue Zone” is a term intro­duced first by Blue Zones Project founder and Nation­al Geo­graph­ic fel­low Dan Buet­tner. He dis­cov­ered five areas across the world where a large num­ber of peo­ple lived sig­nif­i­cant­ly longer lives and iden­ti­fied the pro­duc­tive lifestyle habits they shared. Begun in 2009, the Blue Zones Project is ded­i­cat­ed to help­ing com­mu­ni­ties across the world become ​“health­i­er, hap­pi­er and more productive.”

Over 800 busi­ness and orga­ni­za­tions across South­west Flori­da have par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Blue Zone Project. These include super­mar­kets, restau­rants, schools, park sys­tems, faith-based orga­ni­za­tions, employ­ee work­sites, home­own­ers’ asso­ci­a­tions and governments.

By com­mit­ting to best prac­tices for mak­ing health­i­er choic­es eas­i­er, par­tic­i­pants have helped to reduce major health risks com­pared to Flori­da as a whole. These include 36% low­er tobac­co use, 28% low­er in poor nutri­tion; 17% low­er stress, 23% low­er obe­si­ty, and 9% low­er in lack of exercise.

The Arling­ton is extreme­ly proud to have done its part. We’re the first orga­ni­za­tion in South­west Flori­da to be triple Blue Zones Project Approved®: as a Work­site, a Homeowner’s Asso­ci­a­tion and a Faith-Based Organization.

Of course, well­ness pro­gram­ming – from healthy eat­ing and cus­tomized fit­ness reg­i­mens to life-enrich­ing dai­ly activ­i­ties – has always been an essen­tial part of our lifestyle since we opened in 2015. And that’s one rea­son why we were eager to join in the Blue Zone Project.

Here’s just one exam­ple: We took part in a Blue Zones Project ​“Track Your Trek” chal­lenge, which is designed to encour­age peo­ple to get on their feet and get mov­ing. We enrolled more than 70 enthu­si­as­tic res­i­dents and employ­ees who walked a total of over 25 mil­lion steps over four months. In case you don’t have a cal­cu­la­tor handy, that adds up to a remark­able 12,813 miles. One res­i­dent was hap­py to report los­ing 13 pounds!

Per­son­al choice is key to Blue Zone Project suc­cess. As the Blue Zone Project – South­west Flori­da says, ​“We don’t man­date that you adopt cer­tain health prac­tices. We invite you to make small changes which will lead to big health ben­e­fits in the long run.” At The Arling­ton, we heart­ed­ly agree.

Learn more about the Blue Zones Project – South­west Flori­da and how you can par­tic­i­pate by vis­it­ing south​west​flori​da​.blue​zone​spro​ject​.com.

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