(Radio Iowa) – An acclaimed National Geographic photographer will offer central Iowans an audio-visual tour of the world’s so-called Blue Zones, places where people tend to live longer, healthier lives, often past one-hundred. David McLain has spent 15 years exploring those areas and is bringing stories of the residents to the Civic Center of Des Moines as part of its Explorer Series. McLain explains his main goal in capturing images of Blue Zone inhabitants. “I want to make them look aspirational. I feel like a lot of times, especially in America, we don’t look up to old people and in almost all of the Blue Zones, people look up to old people and they are aspirational,” McLain says, “and I wanted all of the images that I created and stories that I told to feel that way.”

McLain has studied the habits and rituals of centenarians in five geographic locations: Loma Linda, California; the Nicoya peninsula of Costa Rica; Sardinia, Italy; Ikaria, Greece; and Okinawa, Japan. “They aren’t necessarily vegetarians, but they eat mostly fruits and vegetables and a little bit of meat,” McLain says. “They all move naturally, so you’re not going to see anyone in a Blue Zone going to CrossFit, but you are going to see them constantly moving throughout the day. In fact, they only sit for about 20 minutes continuously at a time, and then they’re up and about.” While they’re oceans apart, McLain says many of these residents share common traits. “Family and community is really important and they have strong social networks,” McLain says, “and social networks in Blue Zones are not online. They are the people that are sitting around the table with you, that you see on a daily basis.”

David McLain (Photo provided by Des Moines Performing Arts)

The average Iowan lives about 78 years, but many Blue Zone residents celebrate their one-hundredth birthdays and well beyond. Through personal anecdotes and scientific research, McLain says he’ll be sharing tips on adopting some of their practices, and he says the Blue Zone assignment changed how he lives his own life. “It’s made me eat differently. I eat way more beans and greens and grains,” McLain says. “Basically, I have a giant garden which, I didn’t before this work, so it’s kind of turned me into a gardener. Gardening is not just a great way to get fruits and vegetables, it’s also a great way to get exercise.” He says he’s also worked to become more family- and community-oriented.

McLain appears Thursday night in a presentation called, “The Blue Zones: Unlocking the Secrets of Longevity,” at the Civic Center of Des Moines.

(Listen to his interview with Radio Iowa’s Matt Kelley, HERE)