Live Long and Prosper

If you want to live a long time, move to Colorado (or Hawaii or New Mexico).

According to Eons, a website devoted to healthy aging, people in those three states live five years longer than average.Eons published its first “State of Longevity” report (for which, unfortunately, no direct link can be found, so I’m forced to rely on a PR Newswire press release) based on the more than 450,000 people who have completed Eons’   Longevity Calculator. So what the survey lacks in statistical reliability, it makes up in volume.

The calculator found that residents of Hawaii, Colorado and New Mexico project to live the longest, while West Virginians, Missourians and Louisianans are doomed. Coloradans also got an honorable mention for our “positive attitude,” obviously a measure taken while not driving the local roadways.

I ran into a guy in a LoDo bar the other day visiting from Delaware who was effusive about the good health he saw in Coloradans. “I’ve never seen so many people out exercising,” he said, “biking, running. You never see anybody who’s overweight.” But Colorado didn’t even make the top five in the “best exercisers” category.