Surprising Health Habits Of Jeralean Talley, The World’s New Oldest Living Person

While most of us strive to eat more leafy greens and cut back on junk food, the world’s oldest living person is eating chicken nuggets and potato salad (and plenty of fruit, of course).

At age 115, Michigan’s Jeralean Talley is thought to be the new world’s oldest living person after the death this week of 116-year-old Gertrude Weaver, who held the World’s Oldest Person title for 5 days after the death of 117-year-oldMisao Okawa of Japan, who passed away on Wednesday, April 1.

Talley, who is from the Detroit area, hasn’t been sitting back in her advanced age: She bowled until she turned 104 and mowed her own lawn until a few years ago. She also lived alone until she was 108, when her daughter Thelma Holloway moved into her home.

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Jeralean Talley and Tyler Kinloch after a fishing trip in 2012. 

“Given her age, I’d consider her to be very active and very mobile,” family friend Michael Kinloch tells Yahoo Health of Talley. According to Kinloch, Talley uses a walker in public but walks around or leans on furniture when she navigates her own house.

“She’ll say, ‘Hey, I’ve got it!’ She’s very aware of the fact that she needs to move around, otherwise she’ll lose that mobility,” Kinloch says.

Kinloch just recently went on a walk with Talley, who had this to say about her health: “I don’t feel bad. I don’t feel sick. I feel as good as you do, and I look as good as you do. I just can’t get around as well as you do.”

“Her mental state is very sharp,” family friend Michael Kinloch told the Detroit Free Press of Talley. “She’s feeling no pain. She just can’t get around like she used to.”

Talley herself says that she’s in good health: “I feel good. I don’t feel sick. I’m still trying to do the right thing is all.”

According to U.S. Census Bureau data, a growing number of Americans are living to age 100, and nearly 83 percent of them are women. The next oldest living person in the world, Susannah Mushatt-Jones, is also an American women, according to the Gerontology Research Group.

Related: Walk 20 Minutes Per Day To Live Longer 

So, what’s Talley’s secret? TV and eating … pretty much everything. Holloway says that her mother likes to listen to baseball on the radio and watch The Ellen DeGeneres Showand Wheel of Fortune. She also loves potato salad, honey buns, McDonald’s chicken nuggets, and Wendy’s chili, and often stays up until midnight.

But Talley doesn’t just eat fast food: Kinloch says she eats plenty of fish (especially catfish), rice, vegetables, and fruits like blueberries, cantaloupe, strawberries, and watermelon. She also began avoiding butter 10 years ago for dietary reasons.

According to Holloway, her mother has stayed active by sewing dresses and quilts, and playing slot machines at casinos. She now sits most of the time, but works out by waving her arms in the air and kicking her feet. And twice a year she goes fishing for catfish and trout with Kinloch.

Talley also cooks on occasion. Every Christmas she bakes head cheese—pigs’ ears and feet in a jelly stock—for Kinloch (although she’s not a big pork eater herself), and makes walnut pie with nuts from the tree in her backyard for friends.

But Talley says that the secret to living a long life isn’t what you eat—it’s what you do: “Treat the other fellow like you want to be treated. You don’t tell a lie on me so I won’t tell a lie on you.”

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