{"id":35194,"date":"2024-04-25T16:08:18","date_gmt":"2024-04-25T21:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.und.edu\/und-today\/?p=35194"},"modified":"2024-04-25T17:10:39","modified_gmt":"2024-04-25T22:10:39","slug":"healthy-living-initiative-promotes-wellness-to-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.und.edu\/und-today\/2024\/04\/healthy-living-initiative-promotes-wellness-to-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Healthy living initiative promotes wellness to students"},"content":{"rendered":"

COMM 430 class partners with Blue Zones Project to highlight fitness, healthy eating concepts campuswide<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Members of Emily Gibbens-Buteau’s COMM 430 course pose at the Memorial Union. Photo by Joe Banish\/UND Today.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A UND communications class recently paired up with the Blue Zones Project, a nationwide initiative promoting healthy living that includes Grand Forks on its list of pilot communities.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Emily Gibbens-Buteau<\/a><\/strong>, teaching assistant professor in the Department of Communication<\/a><\/strong>, and her COMM 430 class hosted an event in the Memorial Union titled \u201cLive by 9 with Blue Zones.\u201d\u00a0The event had been created and organized by the class and the Blue Zones Project to promote wellness to students, Gibbens-Buteau said. It featured a variety of vendors and partners, free food samples from Crisp & Green \u2014 a new restaurant in Grand Forks serving salads, smoothies and grain bowls \u2014 plus activities, crafts and giveaways that had been lined up for attendees.<\/p>\n

The event was meant to align with key points of the UND LEADS Strategic Plan, including experiential learning and community engagement on campus, Gibbens-Buteau said. And it came about because although the Blue Zones\u2019 mission is well known across much of Grand Forks, UND students’ knowledge seemed low.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlue Zones is pretty new in the community, and we noticed that while a lot of people outside of UND knew about Blue Zones, UND students were still unaware of it,\u201d she said. \u201cWe wanted to bring awareness to campus, and hopefully teach students about the various wellness practices of Blue Zones. We like the mission, and thought it fit well with students.\u201d<\/p>\n

The term \u201cBlue Zone\u201d was first introduced in 2004 by journalist Dan Buettner, who sought to understand why certain communities are home to an unusually large population of centenarians. After expeditions around the globe, Buettner and his team identified five locations they later dubbed the first Blue Zones. They include Okinawa, Japan; Ikaria, Greece; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica, and Loma Linda, Calif.<\/p>\n

The initiative was launched in Grand Forks in May 2022, and seeks to promote the nine pillars or \u201cPower 9\u201d of healthy living common to the original Blue Zones \u2013 the \u201cLive by 9\u201d referenced in Gibbens-Buteau\u2019s event title. It has since expanded to partner with more than 78 cities nationwide.<\/p>\n

The Blue Zone Project\u2019s Power 9 are:<\/p>\n