Marriage Is Healthy
Being married “lengthens life, substantially
boosts physical and emotional health and raises income” for both women and men,
states a researcher in The New York Times. A study by University of
Chicago professor Linda J. Waite counters a report published in 1972 indicating
that married women suffer more psychological stress. Dr. Waite found that “marriage
changes people’s behavior in ways that make them better off,” such as drinking
less alcohol. Marriage also appears to reduce depression. In fact, “single men
as a group were depressed at the outset of the study and became more depressed
if they stayed single.” However, Dr. William J. Doherty, of the University
of Minnesota, notes that the data represent averages and do not mean that
everyone is better off married or that people who marry the wrong person will
be happy and healthy.
Violent Heroes
Some of the most popular role models for
children are action-film heroes, according to a United Nations Educational,
Scientific, and Cultural Organization study of the effect of violence in the
media. Of the five thousand 12-year-olds interviewed in 23 countries, 26 percent
placed these movie heroes “way ahead of pop stars and musicians (18.5 percent),
religious leaders (8 percent), or politicians (3 percent)” as their models for
conduct, notes Brazil’s Jornal da Tarde. Professor Jo Groebel,
coordinator of the study, says that children evidently regard violent heroes
mainly as models of how to survive difficult situations. The more children
become accustomed to violence, Groebel warns, the more capable they are of
extreme behavior. He adds: “The media propagate the idea that violence is
normal and pays off.” Groebel emphasized that parents play a fundamental role
in providing their children with direction that helps them to separate fiction
from reality.
Family Dining
In a study of 527 teens, those who ate dinner
with their families at least five times a week were “less likely to do drugs or
be depressed, more motivated at school and had better peer relationships,” says
Canada’s Toronto Star newspaper. “Teens labelled as ‘not well-adjusted’
ate with their families three or fewer days a week.” Psychologist Bruce Brian
asserts that the family dinner hour is “a trait of a healthy family.” Dining
together fosters family bonds, communication skills, and a sense of belonging,
notes the report, and provides an opportunity to learn table manners and to
share in conversation, humor, and prayer. One grown daughter of a family who
regularly ate together says that if they had not always done so, “I don’t think
I’d be as close to them as I am now.”
Deafness From
Headsets
Research by Australia’s National Acoustic
Laboratory revealed that even normal use of personal stereo headsets can cause
latent ear damage, reports The Courier-Mail of Brisbane. Researcher Dr. Eric
LePage said that young people are reluctant to take such warnings seriously. “They
can repeatedly expose themselves to very loud sounds or music for years and
they judge that it has no effect,” he said. One survey showed that warnings “had
little impact until people actually started suffering deafness,” the paper
said. The new research confirms German studies indicating that about one
quarter of military recruits there aged 16 to 24 have already damaged their
hearing by listening to loud music and that “almost 10 percent of students
aged 16 to 18 had lost so much hearing that they had problems understanding
some normal conversation.”
