Senior walkers embrace idea of coming together for a common purpose

FORT WORTH, Texas – When Linda Fulmer and her husband moved into their new home about six years ago, they noticed their Fort Worth neighborhood was in the middle of a transition. Some retirees were moving out, and younger couples and families were moving in.

An older man, an original homeowner who lived across the street, expressed concern that the neighborhood was on its way downhill. "I thought, 'OK, that's an issue of people not connecting with one another,' " she recalls.

So Fulmer, 61, spearheaded an effort to help knit the neighborhood back together. She started small groups that met for regular walks around White Lake Hills, about six miles east of downtown Fort Worth. The groups drew inspiration from Moai, a tradition that began in Okinawa, Japan.

Moai (pronounced mo-eye) roughly translates to "coming together for a common purpose." On the Japanese island, village elders assigned about five young children to a Moai as a sort of second family to provide companionship, financial help and lifelong support. In Fort Worth, Moais formed for walking are part of a citywide effort to boost health habits linked to longevity.

The walking groups are in different corners of the city. Some are made up of people who live in the same neighborhood. Others are based at churches, retirement communities, workplaces or community centers.

Far more than the miles walked or calories burned, the walking groups encourage social connection. They help fend off isolation and loneliness. They have turned strangers into friends. For participants, they've become a more powerful social network than those found behind a computer or cellphone screen.

Joining a Moai helped Elouise Burrell, 69, pick up exercise again. She had quit her job to become a full-time caregiver after her father had a stroke. Her 92-year-old father, Roosevelt, also joins the group in his motorized wheelchair.

Fort Worth's walking Moais are part of Blue Zones, a national wellness organization started by Minnesota native Dan Buettner, a National Geographic fellow. He identified and studied five places in the world where people live the longest, healthiest lives: Okinawa; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Ikaria, Greece; and Lomo Linda, Calif. He dubbed the areas "blue zones." It built upon work by Gianni Pes and Michel Poulain, who studied the high concentration of centenarians in Sardinia. Buettner and a team of researchers have studied the blue zones to better understand habits that contribute to happiness and longevity.

Social connection was one of the common factors found in the blue zones. People who live in the regions tended to have friends or belong to groups that modeled healthy behaviors, such as exercising, eating healthy and not smoking. In Okinawa, those social groups took the form of Moais.

The Burrells walk for 30 to 40 minutes on Sunday nights in Lake Como, a historically black neighborhood on the west side of Fort Worth. The walking group's members span from age 10 to 92.