The Roseto Outliers

An Outlier is considered to be an individual that stands out in society because they do things out of the ordinary or norm. They are considered to be successful or different in a positive way in society. For example, people with high IQs like Albert Einstein, famous musicians like Mozart, and etc. are considered to be Outliers

The Roseto Mystery had to do with the mystery regarding why citizens of Roseto didn’t have any heart attacks or signs of heart disease. This was especially abnormal during the 1950s because of the epidemic plague of heart attacks in the United States. The epidemic affected men under sixty five years old and they were dying because of heart attacks. While, in Roseto no one under fifty-five had died of a heart attack or displayed signs of heart disease. Also, for men over sixty-five, the death rate of heart disease was around half of the United States entirely.

The Rosetan’s secret to longevity was their culture. Originally, Dr. Stewart Wolf and Dr. John Bruhn believed their good health was due to their dietary practices, but they soon learned that this wasn’t the case. Their diet was very unhealthy and 41% of their calories came from fat. They ate biscotti and taralli all year around, even though it was

traditionally eaten during Christmas. Also, they cooked with lard, instead of olive oil, which was much healthier and used in Italy. In Italy, pizza had a thin crust and a few ingredients like salt, oil, and maybe tomatoes, anchovies, or onions. While, pizza in Roseto consisted of bread dough, sausage, pepperoni, salami, ham, and maybe eggs. As well as that they didn’t exercise a lot. A majority of the people of Roseto were obese and smoked a lot. Regardless of their unhealthy diet and lack of exercise, they were just dying of old age. So, this led Dr. Stewart Wolf and Dr. John Bruhn to believe that genetics played a huge part in their success, which also turned out to not be the case. Afterwards, they believed the key to solving the mystery was the location (the foothills of eastern Pennsylvania). This theory was disproved after they looked into Bangor and Nazareth. Those towns were a few miles away and quite similar in size and surroundings. Yet, men over sixty-five suffered three times the amount of death from heart disease compared to Roseto. Eventually, after a lot of failed explanations for the Rosetan's immunity towards heart attacks, they came to the realization that the culture of Roseto people was the key to their success. Their culture brought on a feeling of community and unity. In addition, people actually interacted with one another by visiting each other, cooking for one another in their backyards, and talking to one another. Many homes had three generations living together and they went to mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel together.
During the 1800's, the Rosetans emigrated from Roseto Valfortore, which was one hundred miles southeast of Rome in the Apennine foothills concerning the Italian province of Foggia. The life for the townsfolk was difficult and hard. They had to work in the marble quarries or plow the fields, which was quite a distance away and tiring. They had to walk up the hill at night. So, when the townsfolk heard about the land of opportunity, they jumped at it. They didn't have anything to lose because for the most part, they were illiterate and poor. In January 1882, a group of Rosetans went to New York and slept in Manhattan's Little Italy. Eventually, they went to the town of Bangor, Pennsylvania. In that year, fifteen Rosetans abandoned Italy to go to America and so on. Many Rosetans heard about the promise of the New World and that ultimately made them leave their home country to go to America. The Rosetans started to purchase land on a rocky hillside near Bangor and began to build their own community.

Their values could be considered traditional or orthodox. Unlike conventional society, they placed a higher emphasis on the value of grandparents and supporting one another. The wealthy didn’t brag about their wealth and those that needed help were helped. They had 22 civic organizations, three generations under one roof, and friends talking to each on the street. Their environment was peaceful and stress free. There was no suicide, addiction, welfare, crime, and peptic ulcers in Roseto. They went to church and practiced their religion together. Community and culture was especially important to them, which they brought from their home country. As well as that they incorporated their home country in their current country, which made Roseto completely insulated from the pressures of the modern world.

They lived in their own “world”. The population of Roseto was less than 2,000, so in a sense Roseto was like their own little town. They kept to themselves and didn’t associate with other towns due to language barriers. Bangor was next to them and they spoke mainly Welsh and English. In the next town over, the people mainly spoke German. So, they interacted amongst themselves and spoke Foggian, a dialect from Italy.

Dr. Stewart Wolf and Dr. John Bruhn discovered that the answer to the Roseto Mystery was Roseto itself. Their culture was the premise to their good health, which made doctors begin to view what contributed to heart disease differently. Doctors started to understand that in order to understand why someone was healthy or not, they needed to look beyond the individual. They had to look at an individual fully in terms of relationships, culture, background, and etc. because those attributes influence an individual to be who they are.

They had many festivals to bring a sense of community and unity.

In 1896, a young priest named Father Pasquale de Nisco gained control of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. He created spiritual societies and created festivals. He motivated the people to clear the land and plant onions, beans, potatoes, melons, and fruit trees. He distributed seeds and bulbs, which lead the town to come to life. The people of Roseto started to raise pigs in their backyards and grow grapes to make wine. Eventually, schools, a park, a convent, and a cemetery was created. Near Garibaldi Avenue, small shops and bakeries and restaurants and bars were built. Basically, the festivals helped the Rosetans create their own self-sufficient world in their little

town.

Malcolm Gladwell is trying to argue that you must look at the whole picture of Outliers to understand why certain people become Outliers. You have to take into consideration why and how such a transition occurs for Outliers, since Outliers aren't necessarily born as Outliers. They weren't ordained to be successful, but became successful because they were able to take advantage of opportunities given to them and to utilize their learned skills. Therefore, in order to fully comprehend what leads an individual to become an Outlier, we have to look into factors beyond innate talent. There are reasons why Outliers are Outliers and those reasons aren’t something that was especially forsaken to them. They weren’t born a certain way in which they were bound to fulfill such a prophecy. In order to understand Outliers, we have to look at where they grew up, their background, their culture, and other influential factors on the condition of an individual. For instance, the citizens of Roseto were different because of their culture.