How Belonging is Good for Our Health
In his book Outliers: The Story of Success, author Malcolm Gladwell tells about a mid-century Pennsylvania town called Roseto. In the 50s, this town was populated entirely of people who’d come from a single Italian village. A young medical doctor who came to know this Pennsylvania community was baffled by the low incidence of disease in the village—including heart disease, which at the time was rampant in the US. He arranged to have researchers study the town. They were surprised to discover the people of Roseto, Pennsylvania didn’t have an especially healthy diet, didn’t refrain from smoking, and often carried too much weight. So, what explained their excellent health?
In 2009, a doctor writing for the medical journal The Canadian Family Physician (v.55[7]:768), summarized the conclusions of those researchers. He wrote:
With no answers offered by the medical research team, social scientists were consulted. They described a unique sharing of experiences that defined the town’s social structure. They discovered a feeling of trust and security among Rosetans because the people of the town always had someone they knew and who knew them to turn to for support….
{Read remainder of column on Patheos HERE.}