To live beyond 100 years is a mere fantasy for many, but not for French woman named Jeanne Calment, who achieved 122 years of existence and bagged the record of the world’s oldest person in history.
Prior to Calment’s demise, she was able to share her life story with professional demographer Jean-Marie Robine, who studies the prevailing relationship between health and longevity.
According to Robine, although a big portion of Calment’s longevity is by ‘exceptional chance’, there are still some vitality factors that contributed to Calment’s longer life span, which are the following:
She had incredible social experiences
According to Robine, when Calment was still alive, she ‘had absolutely nothing to do except to care for herself.’ Along with self-care, she traveled a lot to France and engaged in social activities. She spent her entire life meeting new people from different places and backgrounds and building solid social relationships with them. Together with her husband, Calment traveled to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower and other fascinating spots around the world in the 19th and 20th centuries.
She was rich and lived a comfortable life
Given that Calment had a wealthy life, she could have had quality access to a healthy lifestyle. Robine said that Calment came up from a bourgeois family in southern France. Her social status allowed her to get into a prominent school until 16 years old, which was not very common during that era. She also had the chance to attend private lessons in art, dance, and cooking before she got hitched at the age of 20. Robine added that another factor for her longevity was because she was exposed to a ‘stress-free’ environment.
She never smoked cigarettes in her younger years
Calment was not allowed to smoke, and that contributed to her long life span. Robine revealed that it was impossible for a girl, especially if she’s a member of a bourgeois family to engage in smoking. After getting married, Calment admitted that her husband offered her a cigarette, and she tried smoking, but she didn’t like it, so she quit as soon as possible. Ironically, Clement did not smoke for most of her life, but later developed a smoking habit at the age of 112 while dwelling in a nursing home.
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