Famed journalist Dan Buettner has made his pick for the sport most likely to help people live longer.
And his pick is pickleball.
Buettner is the journalist known for his extensive studies on longevity in the “Blue Zones”—or areas and regions around the world where Buettner has found more people living extraordinarily long and healthy lives.
“You want to live longer? Pick up one of these,” Buettner said as he showed a pickleball racquet in a post on Instagram recently. He also described pickleball in the caption as “a racket sport just like tennis” but with an edge: “It’s easy to learn and incredibly social!”
The New York Times best-selling author also clarified that his choice of pickleball is a matter of preference as he alluded to research saying racquet sports, in general, contribute to longevity. To wit, a study published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings reveal that tennis players live nearly 10 years longer than sedentary people—beating other sports such as swimming, soccer, and cycling. The caveat is that the research doesn’t really say if the longevity is due to the sport itself or a byproduct of being active and exercising regulary in the first place.
Regular exercise, of course, has long been considered the key to a long, healthy life. Aside from keeping the body fit, exercising regularly also lowers the risk of heart disease and has been shown to help prevent cancer and slow brain aging.
That being said, it stands to reason that all the benefits of regular exercise and playing tennis applies to playing pickleball. But if you ask Buettner, pickleball is the way. And his reason makes perfect sense, actually.
“Why? It’s a racquet sport, but because it’s also easy to learn and it’s consummately social,” he explained. “You can’t help but meet people when you get on the pickleball court. It’s regular. It’s something you can do every day. It’s something that’s available to just about anybody for very cheap.”
Intentional or not, Buettner basically just enumerated the biggest reasons pickleball is on a meteoric rise around the world. The health benefits might be the cherry on top of the sundae.
