Roseto Thesis

120 Words1 Pages
O LITTLE TOWN OF ROSETO Gladwell introduces his thesis with an account of the healthy citizens of Roseto, Pennsylvania, a town of about 1,500 residents, most of them descended from families who immigrated from Roseto Valfortore, Italy. In the middle of the twentieth century, it seems, the inhabitants of Roseto had extraordinarily low incidents of heart disease, and this well before cholesterol-lowering drugs had been invented. Was it because of their “Mediterranean” eating habits? No, they had switched to the American diet. Was it genes? No, immigrants from Roseto Valfortore living elsewhere in America were not exceptionally healthy. Could it have something to do with the region? Again, no, since neighboring small towns of immigrants showed