Dan Buettner Blue Zones Founder; Fellow & Explorer

Dan Buettner is a National Geographic Fellow and multiple New York Times bestselling author. He has discovered, through multiple expeditions with teams of research scientists specializing in population studies, the five places in the world which have been dubbed “Blue Zones”. In these Blue Zones, Buettner has found that the inhabitants live the longest, happiest, and healthiest lives in the world. His New York Times Sunday Magazine article about these places, “The Island Where People Forget to Die,” was one of the Times’ most popular articles, as well as his National Geographic cover story on titled “The Secrets of Living Longer”. A chord was struck after these publications, and thus subsequent books were written and a company which seeks to share the distilled wisdom of Blue Zones cultures with American cities was born.

Blue Zones, LLC, puts the world’s best practices of longevity and wellbeing to work in people’s lives at the community level. Buettner works in partnership with Healthways, municipal governments, and various insurance companies to implement the program in more than 20 cities, and has dramatically improved the health of more than five million Americans to date. Their strategy focuses on optimizing the local environment – including the walkability for citizens and kids, availability of healthy food options, social connectivity, pursuit of life purpose, and ongoing coaching and support for creating homes which effortlessly bring forth wellness and happiness.

In one project alone, Buettner and his former partner AARP applied principles of Blue Zones to Albert Lea, , and lowered health care costs by 40%. Harvard University’s Walter Willet called the results “stunning” in his review of the program in Newsweek magazine.

His books The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who’ve Lived the Longest and Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way have remained bestsellers, along with his new book THE BLUE ZONES SOLUTION: Eating and Living Like the World’s Healthiest People. These books have been featured on The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, Good Morning America, Dr. Oz, NPR, and Oprah.

Buettner also holds three Guinness Book of World Records in distance cycling (and is possibly the only person to have cycled through the Sahara desert without sunscreen!) and has won an Emmy Award for television production. He resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota and is particularly proud to be the father of three (nearly) grown children. Visit him at www.BlueZones.com, and follow him on Twitter and Instagram @bluezones.

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