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Okinawa Island is the largest of a group of islands that lie in the Pacific Ocean, to the south of the rest of Japan. The people there are different from other Japanese people. For example, they have their own culture and language, although now only older people speak the Okinawan language. Okinawans also live longer than other Japanese people. In fact, they live longer than most people in the world. For every 100,000 people on the island, thirty-four live to be a hundred years old! In the USA, only ten people in 100,000 reach that age.
So, what is the secret of the long lives of the Okinawan people? Well, scientists believe it is because of their traditional diet. About forty years ago, Okinawans only ate food that they produced on the island. They ate a lot of green and yellow vegetables, and only a little meat. They loved pork, but they only ate it on special occasions, and they didn’t eat many eggs or drink much milk. Although they lived by the sea, they only ate a little fish; unlike most Japanese people who ate, and still eat a lot! People who lived in Okinawa also didn’t eat much rice. Unlike other Japanese people, they preferred to eat sweet potatoes, which don’t have as many calories as rice. It seems that a lot of older Okinawans live to be a hundred because they grew up with a healthy, low-calorie, mostly vegetarian diet.
Scientists have discovered that elderly Okinawans rarely get diseases which kill a lot of people in other parts of the world. In the USA, for example, a lot of people die from heart disease, but on the island of Okinawa the number of people who develop heart problems is eight times less than in the USA.
What about the future? Will young people who are growing up on Okinawa now also live to be a hundred? The problem is that life on the island now is busier and more modern than it once was, and most young people there have the same choices and lifestyle as young people in the rest of Japan. As a result, Okinawan teenagers buy a lot of fast food and fizzy drinks, just like other Japanese teenagers, and they often eat rice and bread instead of sweet potatoes and vegetables. Okinawa is still mostly a healthy place to live, and the young people who live there have a healthier diet than teenagers in the rest of Japan and in other parts of the world, but it’s not as different as it was a few years ago. So, it’s possible that fewer people will celebrate their 100th birthdays in Okinawa in the future.
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