About the Vitality Project

Written by Amy Tomczyk

The AARP/Blue Zones Vitality Project, sponsored by United Health Foundation, set out to create America's healthiest hometown by adding 10,000 years of healthy life to its residents. A typical American community, Albert Lea, Minnesota, was chosen from several small cities in the mid-West.

In January 2009, Vitality Project experts began working with Albert Lea's town leaders to transform the way residents eat, work, exercise, and play. Together they started adding community gardens, making over restaurant menus and vending machines, creating "walking school buses," and building new walking trails.

In May, Albert Lea residents began signing the Vitality Project Pledge and taking the Vitality Compass®—an interactive tool that helps measure an individual's projected life expectancy based on current behaviors.

To learn more about the Project, go to AARP.org

To participate along with the Project, sign up by taking the Vitality Compass® at AARP.org. You'll get a sense of how long you may live, given your current lifestyle, and you'll become part of a growing movement to make healthy living easy and fun.