Application Deadline: January 31, 2024
Dates: 6/18 – 7/18/2024
La Dolce Vita: Food, Community, and Well-being in Italy is a 4-week intensive program exploring the interconnectedness of health, food, community, and well-being in Italy. The students will observe and discuss differences between Italy and the U.S. through exposure to a variety of perspectives to understand how factors, such as culture, lifestyle, dietary intake, social connectedness, and mindfulness interact to influence health and environmental outcomes. The program begins in Bologna, considered Italy’s “City of Gastronomy”, where students will understand the history of culinary traditions in Italy including the ancient diet through the centuries. This will be followed by farmstays at a farm in the Tuscan hills and then at an organic working farm on the Tuscan coast where we’ll focus on gaining an understanding of the locality of Italian food and the interconnectedness of human health and planetary health. Then, the program will travel to two Italian islands, Sardinia and Sicily, to learn about the Blue Zone of Sardinia and conceptualize this as a heuristic for understanding longevity. In the Islands we will explore the differences between the Italian islands and the mainland, and make comparisons to Pacific Northwest islands. Along the way, we will connect with locals to learn about Italian food culture and social cultures that will allow students to evaluate how differences in lifestyle, food culture, social cultures, and dietary choices influence human health. Throughout, we will discuss how to evaluate our observations along with evidence in the literature to make responsible personal choices influencing health
Learn more here.