At 114 years and 6 months old, Besse Cooper holds the Guinness World Record as the oldest living person. A great-great-grandmother to dozens, Cooper said that following a couple of simple rules has helped her live such an incredibly long life .
"I mind my own business and I don't eat junk food," Cooper was quoted as saying in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Born in Tennessee on Aug. 26, 1896, Cooper has four children, 12 grandchildren and more than a dozen great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. She moved to Georgia to teach during the First World War and met her husband, to whom she was married to for 40 years , in the 1920s. She currently resides in a nursing home in Monroe, Ga.
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Guinness World Records judges presented Cooper with an official certificate marking her feat after her record-breaking age was certified by the Los Angeles-based Gerontology Research Group, which confirms the age of supercentenarians , or people who have lived to be at least 110 years old. The previous title holder, Eunice G. Sanborn, passed away on Jan. 31, 2011, having lived 114 years and 195 days.
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