Traditional family values make you fat and sick. Or so says a new study that tracked the health outcomes of full-time homemakers and working mothers for over 45 years:
Epidemiologist Anne McMunn of University College London drew more than 1,400 female participants from a study of 5,362 Britons born during the first week of March 1946. Followed throughout their lives, including face-to-face interviews at ages 26, 36, 46 and 53, the women provided data from both their own views of their health as well as objective measures such as body-mass index. By assessing both subjective and objective information, the researchers hoped to discover whether working moms undertook such multitasking because of their inherent health or achieved good health because of their multiple roles.
Of the 555 working mothers, only 23 percent proved obese by age 53, compared to 38 percent of the 151 full-time homemakers, who also averaged the highest body-mass index of all six categories of women, rounded out by single working mothers, the childless, multiply-married working moms and intermittently-employed married mothers. In addition, full-time homemakers reported the most poor health, followed by single mothers and the childless.
That working mothers were much healthier than the homemakers appears to be the result, not the cause, of their differing roles. This isn't terribly surprising data -- senses of purpose, varied activities, and larger social networks are all heavily correlated with good health -- but it's good to see it affirmed. And hear that husbands? Working wives stay thinner! If this study gets some publicity, we may see what happens when traditionalism and body objectification collide...
