Blue Zones and Diet ID Partner to Empower Well-Being Improvement at Scale
This partnership will combine the patented, clinically validated Diet ID assessment and platform with the Blue Zones community well-being transformation model.
MINNEAPOLIS, June 24, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Blue Zones, LLC and Diet ID, Inc. announced today a strategic partnership to bring powerful innovations to the fields of health promotion, disease prevention, and well-being improvement. Blue Zones empowers people to live better and longer lives by applying their research of the world's longest-lived cultures – blue zones. Diet ID is a digital health platform whose mission is to make diet quality a vital sign by providing a fast and elegant way to measure and manage nutrition. This partnership will combine the patented, clinically validated Diet ID assessment and platform with the Blue Zones transformation model, a first-of-its-kind approach to improving the well-being of entire populations and communities.
The Danish Twin Study established that only about 20% of life span is genetic, while the other 80% is controlled by lifestyle and environment. Improving lifestyle, and especially nutrition, is critical because poor diet has now surpassed smoking as the leading cause of preventable death. Diet quality is the single leading predictor variable for both premature death and chronic disease in the United States and much of the world but is rarely measured or managed effectively.
"This partnership is powerful because it combines the synergies of two innovations," said Ben Leedle, CEO of Blue Zones and Co-founder of Blue Zones Project. "Blue Zones takes a systems approach to improving well-being at the population level with semi-permanent and permanent changes to the environment – our humanmade surroundings - that make healthy choices easier and more accessible; Diet ID's visual assessment and intervention platform can measure and manage diet quality at scale and give individuals a powerful, proven tool that makes healthy eating easier. This unique and dynamic combination of assets will allow us to measure and deliver personalized, precision community health and nutrition interventions at scale. The focus on nutrition, which has been traditionally challenging, solves a critical need in community and population health initiatives."
The plan will include integrating Diet ID's unique assessment and intervention platform into all future Blue Zones transformation initiatives to inform strategies and tactics that will improve the health and well-being of entire cities, campuses, and organizations.
Blue Zones work is based on their identification and research of the world's blue zones, where people live extraordinarily long and happy lives. The company applies their research to improve well-being at the population level; instead of focusing solely on individual behavior change, the Blue Zones model is an upstream solution that makes permanent and semi-permanent changes to the humanmade surroundings so that healthier choices are easier in all the spaces and places people spend the most time.
Diet ID, Inc. has designed the first fundamental advance in dietary assessment methods in decades, with unique-in-the-world, patented intellectual property. By using pattern recognition rather than recollection of details, Diet ID can complete a comprehensive dietary assessment in as little as 60 seconds. This image-based method, invented by CEO Dr. David L. Katz and developed with input from world-leading nutrition experts and a team of dietitians, is leveraged to offer personalized dietary guidance based on health goals and dietary preference.
"Diet ID is to diet what a blood pressure cuff is to blood pressure," said Katz, "–a whole new, quick, easy, and reliable way to measure what's essential. It is also a way to increase awareness of and access to healthful foods that are fresh, affordable, and culturally relevant."
"Programs to promote health rarely include personal attention to dietary quality, which is foundational for wellbeing. The partnership of Diet ID with Blue Zones will fill this critical gap and open the discussions and actions that are needed to help individuals and communities shift toward diets that are healthy and sustainable," said Walter Willett, MD DrPH, Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.
"We are beautifully aligned with Blue Zones," Katz went on, "and are proud and thrilled to partner with the Blue Zones team in the mission to make the 'blessings' of those populations—a bounty of years in life, a bounty of life in years–accessible to millions more people here and around the world."
"Both community-level change and personal empowerment are important to disease prevention, health promotion, and foundational lifestyle-based treatment. This partnership represents a novel and exciting combination of the two," said Michael Parkinson, MD, MPH, Past President, American College of Preventive Medicine.
"This partnership has great potential to advance the goals of lifestyle medicine by matching an efficient and effective nutrition assessment tool with a powerful longevity plan," said Beth Frates, MD, President-Elect American College of Lifestyle Medicine and Director of Lifestyle Medicine and Wellness at Massachusetts General Hospital.
"This partnership represents a whole new opportunity to help people achieve better quality diets, and better quality health," said Christopher Gardner, PhD, Nutrition Scientist and Professor of Medicine at Stanford University.
About Diet ID™
Diet ID is a patented advance in dietary assessment based on pattern recognition, rather than recall. The system, accessible via any web-enabled device and available in English and Spanish, generates a comprehensive assessment of dietary intake- diet type, diet quality (using the Healthy Eating Index 2015), daily servings of all major food groups, and levels of 150 nutrients- in as little as 60 seconds. For more information, visit dietid.com.
About Blue Zones®
Blue Zones employs evidence-based ways to help people live longer, better. The company's work is rooted in explorations and research done by founder and National Geographic Fellow Dan Buettner in blue zones regions around the world, where people live extraordinarily long and/or happy lives. The original research and findings were released in Buettner's bestselling books The Blue Zones Solution, The Blue Zones of Happiness, The Blue Zones, Thrive, and Blue Zones Kitchen—all published by National Geographic books. Blue Zones works with cities and counties to make healthy choices easier through permanent and semi-permanent changes to human-made surroundings and systems. Participating communities have experienced double-digit drops in obesity and tobacco use and have saved millions of dollars in healthcare costs. For more information, visit bluezones.com.
Media Contact
Naomi Imatome-Yun, Blue Zones, 19179528534, [email protected]
SOURCE Blue Zones
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