The Town That Refused to Die

And they boozed. Man, did they booze.

The town of Roseto, Pennsylvania wouldn’t die.

Or, at least, not like the rest of America.

Roseto is technically a borough — really just a smattering of one- and two-story buildings that covers less area than Disneyland.

In the early 1960s , sociologists started obsessing over Roseto. More specifically, they started obsessing with Roseto’s 1,600 residents.

Why?

They wouldn’t die.

• From 1955 to 1961, Roseto had almost no heart attacks among men aged 55-64.

• Roseto men over 65 had a death rate of only 1% (half the national average).

• Roseto’s death rate was 35% lower than in neighboring communities.

OK, cool. Must have been because they were healthier, right?

Nah.

Roseto was founded by Italian immigrants in 1882, and remained heavily Italian into the 1960s.

And Italians are experts at enjoying life.

In Roseto, they inhaled unfiltered stogies, fried their meats in lard, and drank wine “with seeming abandon.”

They put their hearts through hell and declined to visit either it or its counterpart.

So why were they nearly immune to heart disease?

Community.

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Stewart Wolf, then Head of Medicine at the University at Oklahoma University, studied the anomaly in Roseto.

“The community was very cohesive,” Wolf said. “There was no Keeping up with the Joneses. Houses were very close together, and everyone lived more or less alike.”

Turns out, Roseto’s social fabric was better for heart health than traversing the treadmill, pretending to like pickleball, or choking down Cheerios.

In Roseto, things were different.

• Multi-generational households were common, with elders highly respected.

• The town had 22 civic associations despite a population of less than 2,000.

• Residents frequently visited each other, cooking and dining together.

• Regular church attendance and community festivals fostered unity.

And that close-knit societal structure protected Roseto’s residents against stress.

And they kept on ticking.

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In the 1970s, things changed in Roseto.

Younger generations began adopting more mainstream American lifestyles. They moved away from the communal practices that had built Roseto. Maybe they even started lifting weights.

And by the 1970s, heart disease rates in Roseto had risen to match the rates of nearby communities.

As the focus on the community deteriorated, stress skyrocketed.

As stress skyrocketed, health took a hit.

As health took a hit, people died.

That’s it. That’s the story.

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I don’t think I need to expand on this one.

I think you get it.

You can’t do it alone, you’re not meant to do it alone, and you shouldn’t do it alone.

Want to live longer?

Live for others.