American Happiness is at Stake: How Blue Zones Can Bring Well-Being Back to Communities (2024)

By Amelia Clabots

Did you know that happiness is a U-shape curve? For more than a decade, researchers have found that, on average, one’s happiness is elevated in their early years, drops to its lowest during midlife, and begins recovering to its eventual peak toward the end of life.

What if I told you that, according to the most recent World Happiness Report, this curve is taking on a new form—one that illustrates a startling shift in the happiness of Americans in particular?

For more than a decade, researchers have found that, on average, one’s happiness is elevated in their early years, drops to its lowest during midlife, and begins recovering to its eventual peak toward the end of life. Share on X

Not only has the U.S. fallen out of the top 20 for the first time since the report was originally published in 2012, but this drop is driven by a steep decline in the well-being of Americans under 30 years old.

The findings—based on data collected by Gallup and University of Oxford, and authored by Professor Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, the director of Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Center—show that in many regions of the world, this younger age group is typically among the happiest, even more than those over 60. Meanwhile, stateside, young people are dragging down the average.

Although the report tracks key trends rather than root causes—it’s certainly some combination of a myriad of factors, including excessive social media usage, post-pandemic mental health concerns, economic inequality between generations, high living costs, and inadequate healthcare—one thing is clear:

We’re suffering from a collective, early-onset midlife crisis.

And if we’re all our most unhappy a solid 10 to 15 years before when we should historically hit those lows, there’s no telling how far our collective happiness stands to plummet if we don’t take action.

The Devaluation of “Happiness”

For its part, Blue Zones—which is a sponsor of the World Happiness Report—has long made this collective well-being work its purpose and has been improving population-level outcomes within its communities.

Still, culturally, the idea of “being happy” can sometimes be seen as frivolous or inconsequential. However, this report is cuing into an individual’s overall life satisfaction and contentment. It’s demonstrating that happier people live longer and healthier lives.

American Happiness is at Stake: How Blue Zones Can Bring Well-Being Back to Communities (1)

In plain terms, happiness is serious business. It’s very well the difference between dying early and alone or living a long, healthy life. And if there are changes we can make—for ourselves and our fellow citizens—to enjoy the latter, why wouldn’t we prioritize that?

Well, according to De Neve, “most policy-makers underestimate that creating the best possible conditions for well-being is not just the right thing to do philosophically, but that it is also the smart thing to do.”

How to Re-Bend the Curve

So, how do we strategically work to address this national issue and drive real, sustainable change at the community level?

1. Channel hopeful action.

To put it bluntly, this data is bleak. So much of it feels out of our control. Often, when we at Blue Zones present data to a struggling community, it can be overwhelming to see—in graphs, numbers, and charts—how poorly so many people are doing.

What’s particularly valuable about our work is that it’s not just hopeful, it’s actionable. We present solutions to a devastating US problem with a concept, or mantra, that is uniquely US: That you can be in charge of your own destiny and make changes to take back control of your life and the lives of those in your communities.

2. Reconsider your population-level goals.

Around the globe, leaders leverage the World Happiness Report to inform policy decisions that impact their population’s long-term outcomes. However, as is the case in the US, our most relevant metric continues to be GDP. And although it’s certainly important to focus on a faster-growing economy and the job market, when we focus solely on those touchpoints instead of, for instance, a community’s overall wellbeing, we will continue to get results that do not focus on the person or their life experience. If, on the other hand, our goal is to make sure to have everyone in a community living a happy, healthy life, the results will begin tolook different.

American Happiness is at Stake: How Blue Zones Can Bring Well-Being Back to Communities (2)

Curious how this population-level shift can happen? Just look to New Zealand, Iceland, and many nations run by women: Their happiness levels are on the rise in no small part because they felt compelled to readjust their priorities.

3. Invest in systems-based transformation.

None of this work is particularly quick or easy at the outset. However, upfront investment in systems-level change now will make it so the work gets easier and easier until it’s in the very DNA of the communities it serves.

Adjust the structures, environments, and policies that encompass a community system, and you’ll begin to see results. Focus on front-end inputs that support collective happiness, and our current outputs—sickness, shorter life spans, mental illness, and economic disparity—will change. What you put into the system leads directly to what you get out of it.

Focus on front-end inputs that support collective happiness, and our current outputs—sickness, shorter life spans, mental illness, and economic disparity—will change. Share on X

4. Employ an accountable population health model.

The Blue Zones approach to collective impact is unique in its accountability toward sustained well-being outcomes and its commitment to the “life radius,” both of which are key ways for leaders to take the results of the World Happiness Report and address them where they can have the most impact.

Draw awareness to these national and global forces and, just as important, draw relevance to them. Particularly for champions partnering with Blue Zones, it’s imperative that their stakeholders, board members, and project partners understand that this is work worth doing—and that their investment into this work will result in measurable change for their community.

After all, when our nation’s happiness is at stake, what could be more important?

Amelia Clabots is the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Blue Zones. She oversees finance, accounting, and administration functions, advancing the development and implementation of Blue Zones enterprise strategy. For the past 12 years, Amelia has played a pivotal role in building Blue Zones from a small research company to a global brand with multiple products, channels, and initiatives. There is no aspect of the company that Amelia hasn’t strategically helped grow and shape, including in her last three years as Vice President of Finance and Operations. She received her MBA from the University of St. Thomas, is a Certified Professional Project Manager (CPPM) from the University of St. Thomas, and received a BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

tags • Happiness Community well-being World Happiness Report

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American Happiness is at Stake: How Blue Zones Can Bring Well-Being Back to Communities (2024)

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