122-Year-Old Jeanne Calment Smoked Tobacco, Ate Two Pounds Of Chocolate Weekly

Jeanne Calment died in the late ‘90s after living a long, full life since 1875. The 4 ft 11 inches tall woman is said to have been lively and so healthy that she often bragged about never falling ill. Ironically, despite surpassing her parents and siblings in age, she never led a conventionally healthy lifestyle.

Calment was a tobacco smoker until she turned 117 and ate two pounds of chocolate every week; however, she was physically active in her early years, playing tennis, roller skating, swimming, and cycling. She also enjoyed music with her friends growing up.

Jeanne’s life

Jeanne came from a family of drapery business and lived a comfortable life early on with servants attending to chores. She married her cousin Fernand Nicholas Calment at the age of 21— about five years after completing her education. Aside from sports, Jean enjoyed painting and playing the piano as well.

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She had her share of life’s tragedies, including losing her adult daughter Yvonne to tuberculosis and having to take care of her grandson Frederic with her son-in-law, Colonel John Billot, during the 2nd World War. She also lost her husband at the time and had German soldiers occupy her home in France.

Jeanne lived an active life

Jeanne was physically active till she broke her ankle at 100, but that did not stop her daily activities and interests. She lived alone for an additional ten years before moving into a nursing home where she would wake up at 6:45 am daily to pray. Nurses claimed she was more agile than those 30 years younger and would smoke a cigarette and drink wine after each meal.

One month before her passing, she became deaf and blind but healthy in other aspects. Two decades later, Valery Novoselov, a geriatrician and the director of the gerontology chapter of the Moscow Society of Naturalists, disputed Jeanne’s supposed long life, claiming that she died in 1934, but the family evaded inheritance taxes by claiming her body was Yvonne’s.