Southwest Florida Well-Being is a Journey, Not a Destination

by Blue Zones Project Southwest Florida

It’s a new year, a new month, you just experienced a health scare, or maybe you just woke up one morning and said, “ENOUGH, I am going to improve my well-being!” You’re charged up and motivated, and with the best of intentions, you set a goal. Perhaps it’s to lose a certain number of pounds, quit smoking, meditate daily, or exercise the recommended 150 minutes per week.

Congratulations. Setting a health goal is an excellent first step to improve well-being. If you can avoid the daily distractions that can derail your ambitions and finally achieve your health goals; great! What’s even better than that? Setting new goals and continuing to move the well-being needle in a positive direction.

In 2015, NCH joined Blue Zones Project with a single goal in mind – to improve the well-being of Southwest Florida and make our community shine as one of the happiest and healthiest places to live, work and play.
Eight years later and thanks to the sole sponsorship of NCH Healthcare System along with the hard work of our many partners, residents, and organizations, we can say MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. Based on Sharecare’s most recent Community Well-Being Index (CWBI) data collected from our seven community subsets (Bonita Springs, Estero, Naples, Golden Gate, East Naples, Immokalee, and Marco Island), many more people are thriving in Southwest Florida, and healthy behaviors are on the rise in comparison to data from 2015. In addition, over 800 organizations and more than 275,000 individuals said yes to well-being over the last eight years by engaging with Blue Zones Project.

This is very exciting news as we are about to celebrate becoming a Certified Blue Zones Community®. Knowing that well-being truly is a continuous journey rather than a destination, NCH will continue to fund an additional two years of the project dedicated to sustainability. This includes:

• Continued collaboration with community partners and engagement with individuals in their well-being journey
• Ongoing building of well-being infrastructure in places (worksites, homeowners associations, schools, faith-based organizations, restaurants and markets) to help make healthy choices easier
• Lending technical support to food, tobacco and built environment planners and elected officials interested in passing policy that elevates the health and wellness of the community
• Rolling out Blue Zones Project tools for use by physicians to help support their own patients’ health and well-being

Over the next two years, we will continue to measure well-being at the zip code level and share the data analysis with community partners so we can identify needs, optimize use of resources, and utilize the data to attract grant funding to help where people might be suffering and struggling. This is done using the RealAge® test as a collection instrument. Taken by over 43 million people worldwide, the RealAge test determines how old a person really is based on stress levels, diet, activity, and sleep. Then, goals are set to lower or maintain that person’s RealAge.

Now, more than ever, well-being is needed on all levels. We are honored and excited to have the opportunity to meet this challenge and continue serving the Southwest Florida community over the next two years. Our goal is to impact the health and well-being of all Southwest Florida residents and create a change that lasts for generations. Join us in making this happen and invite your friends and family by taking the Blue Zones Project pledge for a happier and healthier life!