Why are there no Blue Zones in Utah?

Why isn't there a Blue Zone in Utah? This question has been on my mind for over a year.  Ever since I heard about Blue Zones I have been wondering why some small town in Utah didn't make the list.  But first, what is a blue zone?

Blue Zones is a concept used to identify a demographic and/or geographic area of the world where people live measurably longer lives. The concept grew out of demographic work done by Gianni Pes and Michel Poulin.

The five regions identified and discussed by Buettner in the book The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who've Lived the Longest:

• Sardinia, Italy (particularly Nuoro province and Ogliastra): one team of demographers found a hot spot of longevity in mountain villages where an amazing proportion of men reach the age of 100 years.
• The islands of Okinawa, Japan: another team examined a group that is among the longest-lived on Earth.
• Loma Linda, California: researchers studied a group of Seventh-day Adventists who rank among North America's longevity all-stars.
• Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica: the peninsula was the subject of research on a Quest Network expedition which began on January 29, 2007.
• Icaria, Greece: an April 2009 study on the island of Ikaria uncovered the location with the highest percentage of 90-year-olds on the planet – nearly 1 out of 3 people make it to their 90s. Furthermore, Ikarians "have about 20 percent lower rates of cancer, 50 percent lower rates of heart disease and almost no dementia."

So, why isn't Utah a Blue zone?

If you look at the most significant factors affecting life longevity in the three blue zones, you will see that the culture in Utah supports many of them.  The Utah culture that is significantly influenced by the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who make up almost 60% of the population.  Family, faith, no smoking, no alcohol, and social engagement are part of the culture.  What about the others?

You would think that because of the large LDS population in Utah that a plant based diet would be more prevalent.  After all, doesn't Doctrine and Covenants 89:10-17 state that that a diet based on mostly plants is the standard for Mormons?   It is difficult to get exact numbers of people who consider themselves plant based eaters, but one study http://www.vrg.org/nutshell/Polls/2016_adults_veg.htm showed that about 3.3% of people in the US are vegetarian   The number is slightly higher in western states at 3.7%.  With that small number of people who are eating a plant based diet, it is obvious that Utah is no different from the rest of the country.

What about physical activity?  You can see from this chart: https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/downloads/PA_State_Indicator_Report_2010.pdf

That Utah is among the states with the highest rates of physical activity.  But you will also note that is it not significantly different from the other states.  So, there is nothing to differentiate Utah in this category.  

What about legumes.  You will probably find more legumes stored in basements in Utah than in any other state but that doesn't mean we are eating them.  

Could it be that we are obese?  While Utah has a lower obesity rate than most of the rest of the nation, coming in at #45 overall, it still has about 25% of its residents who are obese.  This number is increasing at about 1% per year.  http://stateofobesity.org/adult-obesity/

How did Utah do with the two most obvious obesity-realated heath issues, Diabetes and Hypertension.  The good news is that it ranks #50 in the US in these two categories, but it is really that good?  These two health issues are almost entirely preventable, treatable, and in most cases reversible by changing lifestyle.   So, the fact that 7% of the population had diabetes in 2015 and 23.6% had hypertension, it is not really that good of news.  We tend to ignore that fact that over a half million people in Utah suffered from these issues necessarily in 2015.  This doesn't include the other half million people who also suffered from heart disease, arthritis, and obesity-related cancer.  Consider that there were "only" 3 million people in the entire state in 2015 and 1/3 of them were suffering from a largely preventable ailment.

Life Expectancy among LDS and Non-LDS in Utah by Ray M. Merrill http://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol10/3/10-3.pdf  This article drew the following conclusion:  LDS males and females experience higher life and age-conditional life expectancy compared with non-LDS in Utah. Only some of the higher life expectancy in LDS is explained by historically lower use of tobacco among LDS. Tobacco-related deaths had a larger impact on the difference in life expectancy when conditioned on older ages because of the long latency period often involved with these tobacco-related diseases. Other explanations for the higher life expectancy in LDS may be related to their comparatively high level of church activity, with religiously active people often displaying better physical health, better social support, and healthier lifestyle behaviors, each of which promote longer life. Religious activity may also have an independent protective effect against mortality.

Bottom Line: Utah isn't a blue zone because it doesn't have enough adherents to the success factors to adequately differentiate it from the other states, despite the fact that the teachings of the LDS Church either implicitly or explicitly teach many of the principles of long life that are practices in the blue zones.  The opportunity is there if those that know better would start eating their legumes, focus on a more plant based diet, and get some more exercise.  

This isn't about living longer, it is about living better.  Who wants to see a steady but gradual decline in heath over the last third of their life concluding in a long period of doctors visits, surgery, treatments, and incapacitation.  Right now we are not living longer, we are just dying longer.