Guiness honours world’s oldest living person

Guinness World Records has honoured a 116-year-old Japanese woman, Kane Tanaka, who loves playing the board game Othello.

Kane Tanaka

She was honoured on Saturday as the world’s oldest living person.

The global authority on records officially recognized Kane Tanaka in a
ceremony at the nursing home where she lives in Fukuoka, in Japan’s
southwest. Her family and the mayor were present to celebrate.

Tanaka was born Jan. 2, 1903, the seventh among eight children. She
married Hideo Tanaka in 1922, and they had four children and adopted
another child.

She is usually up by 6 a.m. and enjoys studying mathematics.

The previous oldest living person was another Japanese woman, Chiyo
Miyako, who died in July at age 117.

The oldest person prior to Miyako
was also Japanese.

Japanese tend to exhibit longevity and dominate the oldest-person list.

Although changing dietary habits mean obesity has been rising, it’s
still relatively rare in a nation whose culinary tradition focuses on
fish, rice, vegetables and other food low in fat.

Age is also traditionally respected here, meaning people stay active and feel useful into their 80s and beyond.

But Tanaka has ways to go before she is the oldest person ever, an
achievement of a French woman, Jeanne Louise Calment, who lived to 122
years, according to Guinness World Records.

Guinness said the world’s oldest man is still under investigation
after the man who had the honors, Masazo Nonaka, living on the Japanese
northernmost island of Hokkaido, died in January at 113.