Health of Singles

I found it interesting that married people tend to be healthier and happier than single people. In lecture we talked about this being more applicable to men than women. One point that was mentioned was that single men tend to have less healthy lifestyles (like eating the day old pizza found under the bed!) Our text offers other explanations for this correlation. One was that single people just seem to be less healthy because they go to the doctor less than married people. Another point made in the text is that employment and economic status is an indicator of health. Since married women tend to have a higher income than single women, they generally have better health. (Higher income=higher health).
As professionals I believe it is important that we understand the research and reasons behind statistics. Sometimes it is misleading to just state a statistic such as married people are healthier. We need to tell the whole story by explaning other factors that are associated with better health.
On a more personal note, I told this statistic to my boyfriend and mentioned the thing about the day old pizza. He said that if we were basing health on food alone that I would be the one in our relationship to suffer if single. The reason being that before we moved in together I only ate cereal and ramen noodles! He is definately the better cook and healthier cook at that. Although we are not married- I think that this can bring up another good point. Just because there is a statistic that generalizes people doesn't mean that it is necessarily true for everyone, there are always exceptions to the "norm".