The City of Airdrie's goal to become the healthiest city in Canada takes a big step this week as a group representing the Blue Zone Project in the U.S. comes to the city to explain what becoming a Blue Zone means and assess the level of interest in the city.

A six-member contingent will be in Airdrie from today (May 14) until Thursday.  Doug Smith of the Airdrie and Area Health Cooperative (AAHC) explained what the group will be doing.

"They will share with the community what the Blue Zone movement is all about.  We will share with them what Airdrie's all about as it relates to health, and then the Blue Zone group comes back to us 30 days later with an assessment of our community and will let us know what it will take to become a Blue Zone community.  Then the community will decide whether to proceed with Blue Zones or not."

Smith explained that the AAHC has been engaging the community on health for two years now and what they heard was that Airdrie wants to be healthier.  So they looked at how they might help the community to do that and found two movements in the world.

"One was the World Health Organization's Healthy Communities Movement in Europe and the other is the Blue Zone Movement in the U.S.  We decided upon the Blue Zone Movement because it kind of aligned best with what the community said they wanted.  We have since engaged with them to bring them to Airdrie this week."

Smith said there are 42 Blue Zone cities in the U.S.   If the project goes ahead in Airdrie, we will become the first Blue Zone in Canada.  Smith said to think of Blue Zones as a way to enable the community to be healthier by "changing the surroundings in the community so people get nudged into being healthier in what they eat, how they work and their daily activities."

The Blue Zone group will do a Keynote Presentation tonight in the Main Room at Apple Creek Golf Course.  Airdrie Mayor Peter Brown hopes a large group of community leaders will be on hand.

"Everybody who has a leadership role within organizations.  That can be a business or school division or city council; any of our great non-profits in the community.  Kinsmen Club, Lions Club.  It's the people that are going to be able to bring the message back to the masses because we don't have enough room for 70,000 people there."

Brown thinks becoming a Blue Zone city will be exciting for Airdrie.  He said taking control of our health, in all ways, is a positive thing.  He was especially dismayed over a stat he heard about life expectancy with our children.

"The people that are my children and your children, they're apparently going to live shorter lives than us.  That to me is totally unacceptable because we've got all this technology in front of us, you can get your blood pressure and heart rate on a watch.  Now, we're getting told this.  So to me, this is for the future."

Through the week the Blue Zone group will also be meeting with sectors of the community as focus groups.  On Wednesday, May 16th, a Community Transformation Presentation goes from 8:30 to 10:30 am.  All of the meetings are at Apple Creek.

Mayor Brown believes becoming a Blue Zone is extremely important for the overall health of Airdronians.  But he said, even if the community decides not to pursue becoming a Zone, he's still excited.

"If for some reason this initiative doesn't seem to work for our community, can you imagine if we were able to reach even 15 or 20 percent of our community to realize that your health is the most important part of a human being.  It's just exciting."

To learn more about the Blue Zone Project or to let the AAHC know you plan to attend any of the Blue Zone meetings this week, go here.

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