You can learn a lot about a news organization by how it chooses to report a story. With the internet news machine constantly pumping out headlines, it’s easy to see where media outlets sit on the issues. Take us, for example! We don’t so much report the stories as we make fun of the people who are in charge of the news, and talk about how much they suck. Go team!
The latest science buzz is all about recent studies which suggest that, contrary to previously-held beliefs from long-outdated research, the information suggesting that marriage does a body good may be more “nuanced” than people once thought. That speaks nothing for the fact that, since this kind of research started, entirely new large bodies of research subjects have popped up: divorcees, lifelong bachelors and bachelorettes, and, most staggeringly, the gay and lesbian community. Nothing in these studies, however, is even remotely surprising. What’s the big story? Happy marriages rock. Crappy marriages suck… even more than being single. But how are the big media mouthpieces reporting this?
Lean forward for the chips and dip. If you're leaning for the remote, stay right where you are fatty!
The MSNBC article goes on to explore the one gender dividing issue that, according to one study, did not indicate any “significant impact” on health: Women tended to gain weight after getting married. But, after the inevitable decline to divorce, the ladies dropped the pounds and their exes picked them right back up again. Divorce appears to be a pretty good diet, if you’re on the right side of the gender gap!
The NY Times took a long hard look at not just the most recent studies, but the history of research into this area and how it has affected policy and society as a whole:
Contemporary studies, for instance, have shown that married people are less likely to get pneumonia, have surgery, develop cancer or have heart attacks. A group of Swedish researchers has found that being married or cohabiting at midlife is associated with a lower risk for dementia. A study of two dozen causes of death in the Netherlands found that in virtually every category, ranging from violent deaths like homicide and car accidents to certain forms of cancer, the unmarried were at far higher risk than the married. For many years, studies like these have influenced both politics and policy, fueling national marriage-promotion efforts, like the Healthy Marriage Initiative of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. From 2006 to 2010, the program received $150 million annually to spend on projects like “divorce reduction” efforts and often cited the health benefits of marrying and staying married.
Leave it to New York to point out why all the research done up to this point has been completely stupid and useless!
As is to be expected, only the fringe media is reporting about the gay and lesbian element to all this research. Namely: that gay and lesbian couples, even those without the benefits of legal marriage, stay together just as long as everyone else and are as averagely happy and/or miserable as the rest of America. So, why the silence?
