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A 10-month-old effort to improve the dietary, exercise and lifestyle habits among residents of Albert Lea, Minn., has resulted in participating individuals gaining an average of 3.1 years of longevity, the Associated Press reports. Developed by adventurer and travel writer Dan Buettner, the multi-faceted Vitality Project was created after Buettner identified five areas around the world where people tend to live longer and healthier lives. According to Buettner, the key to extending resident longevity in Albert Lea was encouraging weight loss and healthy habits, in addition to fostering family relationships and a sense of purpose. To aid in the effort, the United Health Foundation and AARP provided funding for consulting and licensing costs, as well as for experts who worked with residents to develop healthy eating habits and improve cooking practices, establish community gardens and launch walking programs. According to the AP, the city "crammed five years of sidewalk and bike trail construction into a year to make exercise easier for its 18,000 residents." Meanwhile, restaurants began adding healthier menu options, and grocery stores began promoting more nutritious foods. In addition, schools stopped celebrating birthdays with junk food and began establishing walking school buses to encourage physical activity among students. To measure the program's success as it pertains to resident longevity, project organizers used a vitality compass, an interactive tool that asks participants to answer 35 questions regarding their lifestyle, including queries about food choices, exercise frequency, work and relationship happiness, and how many times a person has been angry, depressed or anxious in the previous week. The 3.1 year average gain in life expectancy was based on approximately 1,000 participants who answered the questions at both the beginning and end of the experiment. Although project organizers contend that the effort was more than a weight loss effort, Melissa Nelson, a food and nutrition professor at the University of Minnesota, said the project could provide researchers with clues about how to tackle persistent obesity, particularly in terms of the efficacy of community-wide initiatives (Williams/Condon, AP/Yahoo! News, 10/14/09).