In the January 3, 2025 episode of the "Home Designs For Life" podcast, host Janet Engel interviews gerontologist and Zing founder, Sally Duplantier. Sally shares her journey of founding Zing, a mission-driven company dedicated to helping older adults live their best lives. She discusses how the pandemic prompted the creation of "Wellness Wednesdays," a virtual program that has grown to over 15,000 registered participants from 57 countries. The conversation emphasizes the importance of public health education, health equity, and a health span approach to healthy aging. Sally also offers personal insights into living with vitality, addressing grief and loss, and her aspirations for Zing's future. The episode underscores that healthy aging is a lifelong journey, and it's never too late to make positive changes.
Aging with Style
Gerontologist Sally Duplantier joins Senior Anchor Theresa Lindsey Chase from the National Library for Patient Rights & Advocacy to discuss how lifestyle choices improve healthy aging. Sally provides advice and encouragement to listeners on gracefully growing older, and aging with style.
Sally’s professional work focuses on Healthspan—the number of years we are free of chronic disease and disability. Her mission is to help older adults “live their best life longer” through better choices related to nutrition, movement, sleep, stress, and social engagement. Collectively, these lifestyle factors contribute to 80% of chronic disease in the US and 90% of healthcare costs.
Sally discusses how the education she provides through free Wellness Wednesday webinars has helped women and men become better advocates for their personal healthcare. These webinars feature cutting-edge researchers, medical professionals, authors, and thought leaders on topics related to healthy aging. A key feature of the Wellness Wednesday program is its emphasis on scientific research vs. the blog-of-the-day tip. Sally’s mantra is “show me the evidence” vs. simply accepting what is served up in the blogosphere.
Sally also acknowledges that there are entire populations of people who can’t make better choices about lifestyle factors such as food and movement because they live in environments without access to nutritious food or safe places to walk outdoors. Sally discusses work she is doing related to those in underserved communities, including a study focused on increasing participation of under-represented and underserved community members in clinical trials of Alzheimer’s patients.
Sally ends the interview with a discussion about why “mindset matters,” particularly when it comes to how we view ourselves as older adults. Sally cites the research by Dr. Becca Levy from Yale University and others, whose studies have demonstrated that negative self-perception of aging can trim 7.5 years off our lives.