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Pioppi,
on the coast of the Cilento
 I suppose that, by definition, almost
everywhere in the Mediterranean is the real "home" of
the Mediterranean Diet, that is, a diet rich in
vegetables, fruit, pasta, bread and olive oil and not a
lot of meat, eggs and dairy products. It was popularized
in the book “Eat Well and Stay Well: The Mediterranean
Way”, by Ancel Keys and his wife, Margaret, published in
1975. I think it used to be thought of as the diet of
all those poor peasants in the Med who didn't have
enough money to buy processed food, hamburgers and lots
of junk food. That's why they emigrated: Give us your
tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to get
heart disease! In any event, there was a good article on the website of National Public Radio on July 14, 2011. It was called "Mediterraneans Abandon Their Famous Diet" and was written by Jeremy Cherfas. He remarks that the Med diet was first studied and popularized on the basis of studies done here in Pioppi (south of Naples) by American scientist Ancel Keys (1904-2004). Importantly, says the article, this healthy diet is now being ignored in Pioppi and pretty much the rest of Italy. Obesity rates are soaring in the nation, and life-expectancy has started to decline; for the first time ever, Italian children can expect to live shorter lives than their parents. Ancel
Keys
 The article pretty much
confirmed what I have observed since the time I first
taught in a Neapolitan Middle School 30 years ago. Then,
there were a few chubby kids, sure—but obesity was
unusual. That was before the days of the internet,
video-games, etc. Kids did then what they have always
done. They "went out and played" and at least in this
part of Italy they did not gorge on fast-food and sugar.
Life-styles among the young, however, have changed
dramatically over the last few years. There are more
sedentary children and their diet is getting worse and
worse. An eleven-year-old kid in my building almost has
to be rolled down the sidewalk to get to the school bus
(to go four blocks—too far to walk, says Mommy).Ancel Benjamin Keys was born in Colorado Springs and died in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He studied at the U. of California and gave himself a truly eclectic education: political science, economics, oceanography, zoology, biology and physiology. He joined the University of Minnesota in 1936 and four years later founded its Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene. Keys was the cover story in Time Magazine on Jan 13, 1961. His lifelong interest was in dietary science and he is best remembered as the inventor of K-rations (K for Keys, by the way), those balanced meals for combat soldiers in World War II and for popularizing the Mediterranean diet. Keys chose to live in Pioppi in the lovely Cilento area of Italy, a coastal town just south of the Gulf of Salerno to carry out studies on human nutrition and share the typical Cilento lifestyle. (Maybe it worked; Keys lived to the age of 101.) His association with Pioppi goes back to the 1960s when he was one of the hosts of a cardiology congress held in the town. Now, in honor of Keys, Pioppi is the home of the Mediterranean Diet Association and holds regular congresses in the Villa Vinciprova, a site that also houses the Museum of the Living Sea, a remarkable hands-on display of sea life. to
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