Work is good for your health?

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Work is good for your health?
1599
Mon, 05-15-2006 - 5:25am

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/healthnews.php?newsid=43421
Working Mothers Healthier Than Full-time Housewives

Main Category: Women's Health / OBGYN News
Article Date: 15 May 2006 - 1:00am (PDT)

According to new research carried out in Britain, working mothers enjoy better health than full-time housewives. Despite the stress working mothers face by holding down a job, dealing with childcare, housework and striving to keep the family happy.

It appears that working mothers, when compared to full-time housewives, are less likely to become overweight, have a better level of health and a healthier relationship. The study also found that single mothers experience worse health than working mothers who have a partner and children.

You can read about this study in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

Team leader, Dr. Anne McMunn, University College London, said that women who combine work with children and marriage do seem to have better health than full-time housewives. Even though they may experience high levels of stress sometimes.

It is not a question of chicken-and-egg either. Dr. McMunn said it is the experience of work plus having a family that brings on the better health, not the fact that only healthier mothers decide to carry on working.

The researchers examined data on women born in 1946 from the Medical Research Council's National Study of Health and Development. The data registers their health from 1946 until they are 54. Women's health was examined, with the help of a questionnaire at the ages of 26 through to 54. Every decade, the questionnaire collects data on each woman's work history, whether she is/was married, has children, her height and weight.

The healthiest women were the ones who had all three of the following:

-- A Partner
-- Children
-- A job

Those reporting the worst health were stay-at-home mothers, followed by childless women and single mothers.

38% of stay-at-home mothers were obese when they reached their 50s, for working mothers the percentage was 23%.

Written by: Christian Nordqvist
Editor: Medical News Today

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Tue, 06-06-2006 - 11:37am
The age of legal adulthood is 18. You may consider many 18yo's immature (and I agree.) But maturity is not the measiure of adulthood. If it were, Hugh Hefner would be the world's only elderly adolescent. The government has declared all 18yo's to be adults and holds them to it legally. And that's more meaningful than opinion.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Tue, 06-06-2006 - 11:41am
I think a lot of people now (perhaps even Bush) are now thinking that if we had to do it all over again, it would be better not to do it at all and use those resources exclusively to catch bin Laden. But now we're trapped.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Tue, 06-06-2006 - 11:45am
Sigh. In my memory I'd changed the insinuations into declarations. Maybe that was their intention all along: count on Joe/Josephine Public to hear declarations when given insinuations but it's easier to retract something that isn't claimed to be ironclad fact.
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-12-2003
Tue, 06-06-2006 - 11:46am
I don't know what rest of the country you're talking about.... what you are saying doesn't reflect the views of anyone in my general area (on the whole) and I live in a pretty conservative area.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-03-2006
Tue, 06-06-2006 - 11:46am
I respectfully agree.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 06-06-2006 - 11:48am

Yes, perhaps even Bush, although I doubt it. It is encouraging that Condi came up with a way around the hawks on the matter of Iran. The fact that Bush went along with her, and not with the hysterics over at AEI and PNAC may indicate that he has lost some faith in the latter bunch.

What is so painfully irksome is that it was obvious back then that there was a really good likelihood that the war would end up exactly as it has, including inspiring homegrown, Muslim terror networks all over Europe and North America.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-03-2006
Tue, 06-06-2006 - 11:50am
No, I'm well aware who was responsible. But to say that SH has no ties to terrorism whatsoever is a bit naive.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 06-06-2006 - 11:50am
Strike the "maybe" and you are in business.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Tue, 06-06-2006 - 11:53am
He had ties to Palestinian terrorist- specifically suicide bombers acting against Israel. Horrible though that is, it shouldn't have made him a priority more important than catching bin Laden.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 06-06-2006 - 11:53am
If you agree that it was a mistake to invade Iraq, then what exactly are you arguing about here?

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