SECOND OPINION:Marriage is not always good for your health, study shows, writes JACKY JONES
MARRIAGE WAS always thought to be good for health. In 1858 epidemiologist William Farr found that married people live longer, healthier lives than those who are single or widowed. Even though living arrangements have changed dramatically since then, scientists have continued to document this “marriage advantage”.
Studies in the last 20 years present more nuanced viewpoints and it seems that the quality of the relationship, and not the institution, is what produces the positive effect on health.
Or so we thought. The latest research shows that marriage may be a disadvantage when it comes to healthy lifestyles. The 2012 study of nearly 2,000 couples found a person’s confidence in his or her ability to adopt healthy behaviours, such as losing weight and exercising more, depends on their spouse’s attitude.
Changing health behaviour is a process with five distinct stages. The pre-contemplation stage is when people are unwilling to change or are unaware there is a problem with their behaviour. The contemplation stage is when people start thinking about changing their lifestyle. This can go on for months before a person moves to the preparation stage which involves making an action plan, buying the running shoes and restocking the fridge with only healthy foods. The action stage means making the change at a particular date and time. The maintenance stage is when the new behaviour becomes a habit. At any point during this process a person can relapse to a previous stage and must start again.
A person’s initiation of a lifestyle change is closely related to their feelings of self-confidence and belief in their ability to succeed. The study showed that all participants felt very confident in their ability when only their own stage of change was considered. Different results were found when their spouse’s stage of change was factored into the equation.
Married men planning to lose weight felt much less confident in their ability to succeed if their wives were not also thinking about losing weight. A man’s confidence about taking more exercise was unaffected by his wife’s position. On the other hand, married women felt less confident in their ability to take more exercise if their husbands were not also in favour of making this change. Her confidence in her ability to lose weight was unaffected by her husband’s attitude.
These findings clearly show that, after 50 years of feminism, men and women still adopt traditional roles in the home and do not share housework equally. Wives still do the food shopping and cooking so men find it hard to lose weight unless their wives support this goal. Husbands feel confident about being able to exercise more without their wives’ support as they don’t ask for permission to take time out.
Wives, on the other hand, feel confident about losing weight without their husband’s support as wives are in charge of the food that comes into the house and still do the cooking. Taking more exercise needs time and a woman needs husband “approval” to take this time for herself.
Although the study was carried out in the US, Irish married couples are unlikely to be any different. The Women and Men in Ireland 2011 report from the Central Statistics Office found that 98 per cent of those looking after home and family are women.
A 2012 report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) in the UK showed that eight out of 10 married women do more housework than their husbands. Couples still take on “breadwinner” and “homemaker” roles more easily than they share childcare, housework and employment.
Do men become lazier about housework when they become husbands and do women take on the role of food shopper and cook when they become wives? It seems so and this is not good for the health of either spouse. Men do not control their weight unless their wives produce healthy meals and women do not take enough exercise unless they get permission to leave the house.
One of the solutions proposed by the authors of the study is to provide interventions for couples rather than individuals. This will simply reinforce traditional unhealthy gender roles. It’s time for people to take responsibility for themselves. Cook your own food if you are a man. Exercise whenever you like if you are a woman. Or stay single.
Dr Jacky Jones is a former regional manager of health promotion with the HSE