blue zone

noun

variants or less commonly Blue Zone

plural blue zones also Blue Zones

: a geographical region where people have longer than average life expectancies and lower rates of chronic disease

People in all five blue zones also follow a similar eating pattern. They make breakfast their largest meal of the day. Lunch is smaller than breakfast, and dinner is their smallest meal.

—UCLA Health

The community improvement organization Valley in Motion … wants to know what it would take to transform Greater Scranton into a bastion of wellness and longevity, a so-called blue zone.

—Jon O'Connell

—often used before another noun

… blue zone residents rack up more physical activity in activities of daily living such as housework, gardening and transportation.

—LeeAnn Weintraub

Although the lifestyle varies from zone to zone, Blue Zone inhabitants exercise regularly, have strong social networks, know their purpose, feel a sense of spiritual or religious belonging, and drink moderate amounts of alcohol.

—Katie Tran

Word History

Etymology

Note: The collocation in a narrower sense was introduced by Michel Poulain, et al., "Identification of a geographic area characterized by extreme longevity in the Sardinia island: the AKEA study," Experimental Gerontology, vol. 39 (2004), pp. 1423-29. See p. 1426: "The corresponding map based on aggregation of municipalities is presented in Fig. 2 and was defined as the 'Blue Zone' because in the course of the analysis it was originally delineated using a blue marker."

First Known Use

2005, in the meaning defined above