By: Grace Yurko 25′
Senior Janelle Glascoe hopes to inspire her community to adopt habits that lead to increased well-being and longevity through her SPIRITUS Scholars project at St. Paul’s School for Girls. SPIRITUS stands for “Scholars who Present, Inquire, Research, Innovate, Test, Utilize, and Solve.” A two-year exploratory program designed for juniors and seniors, SPIRITUS Scholars empowers students to develop a research question in a field of their interest. Janelle’s project SPSGBlue took shape at the beginning of her senior year.
SPSGBlue aims to educate the SPSG community on the five original “Blue Zones” across the world. In Blue Zones across the globe, people tend to live longer and have lower rates of chronic disease. The five original Blue Zones include Sardinia, Italy, Okinawa, Japan, Nicoya, Costa Rica, Loma Linda, California, and Ikaria, Greece, with the recent addition of Singapore as the sixth on the list. Researchers have identified “The Power 9”, which are nine lifestyle habits of the world’s healthiest and longest-living people. As a practical and impactful objective to her project, Janelle hopes to integrate Power 9 habits into the SPSG community. She plans to make SPSG “a place its members desire to be, succeed, and elevate for its future community and for the longevity of SPSG” by using SPSGBlue to emphasize personal and social bonds and wellness.
Janelle discovered this topic early in her senior year, commenting that this was much later than her other classmates who found theirs by the end of their junior year. Ms. Evans, an admissions associate at SPSG, provided assistance in choosing a topic that addresses an interest of hers that was not known well to the school community. After Janelle shared list of “Things that I Love” in her Notes app, Ms. Evans recommended researching the Blue Zones as she acknowledged that food, travel, and learning about a variety of cultures were significant to Janelle. Janelle expressed her enthusiasm for the topic by commenting that she “instantly ran with the idea and never looked back!”
Grateful for her years at SPSG, Janelle’s primary goal for SPSGBlue is to encourage an appreciation for the school and all its opportunities and to engage students in an initiative that reflects Blue Zone lifestyle habits. Ideally, her project will increase morale and overall well-being of students and faculty on campus. Some of Janelle’s specific action items include restoring “Downshift” at SPSG using the Wii gaming system in the Student Commons, the Gaga pit, and outdoor hammocks. Later this school year, Janelle also hopes to partner with Brock Dining, the campus’ food service, in creating a menu that includes foods common to the dietary habits of those living in Blue Zones. This initiative will address the Blue Zone nutritional trend of “Plant Slant” which entails a diet heavily reliant on plant-based foods.
Janelle cites several sources of support and inspiration during her work on SPSGBlue. In addition to Ms. Evans, her Senior Scholars cohort and S.P.I.R.I.T.U.S. Scholars Program director Mrs. North have mentored her while she researched for her project and “are always willing to provide advice in making [her] initiatives as impactful as they can be for [the] community.”
For more information on the five original Blue Zones and the “Power 9” habits, Janelle recommends visiting https://www.bluezones.com or watching the Netflix documentaries, “Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones”. Additionally, the article, https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20241002-singapore-the-worlds-sixth-blue-zone explores the lifestyle habits of Singapore and how it earned the designation of sixth Blue Zone. Make sure to follow Janelle’s project @spsg.blue for campus occurrences and Blue Zones facts!
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