Skinny Wife; Happy Life
Are skinnier wives happier?
Maybe. If they are skinnier than their husbands, the answer might be “yes.”
Research conducted by the University of Tennessee (and published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science) shows that marital satisfaction is higher for BOTH partners when the wife is at least somewhat thinner (as measured by BMI) than her spouse.
The study shows that the weight of the women doesn’t matter: they don’t need to be thin in absolute terms. Just thinner than their hubbies. The research author suggested that there is an evolutionary basis to men’s initial satisfaction with a relatively thin wife because women with a lower BMI may be more fertile. As for why the wives are happier, the author suggests it is because their husbands are.
Husbands were found to be more satisfied when their wives had lower BMIs than they themselves and that wives with lower BMIs than their husbands stayed more satisfied over time.
After I heard this, my immediate reaction was to calculate and compare my BMI to my that of my own dear husband. Mine’s lower:) But maybe it wasn’t always that way.
I met my husband in grad school. I was reasonably “thin” but he was downright “you can see his ribs if you look hard enough” skinny at the time. We were in our early and mid-20s, respectively. Once we started dating and eating together, I gained weight because I was eating what he was eating, foods and quantities I hadn’t eaten on my own, like pizza and tuna noodle casserole. But, at some point I took off that extra weight and I adapted to eating as part of a couple, without it leading to further gaining. Then, not long after our official engagement, boom, unexpectedly my dad died. And for the first time in my life I lost weight because of stress, rather than gaining. The honeymoon brought a couple extra pounds back. Then, over the following years, up and down and up and up and down and up and down.
My husband, probably due in large part to joining corporate America and no longer exercising like he had while in school, slowly gained weight himself. And had his own ups and downs in the decades since. I haven’t seen his ribs in years:)
I love my husband regardless of what he weighs. And I’m pretty sure he feels the same about me. Do I wish we were both fit and trim? Sure. Do I wish we could eat whatever we wanted and still be fit and trim? Yes. Do I also wish that my husband followed the same eating plan as me and didn’t bring “crap” into the house. Indubitably. But I also wish we’d win the lottery.
Let me be very clear – in no way do I intend this post to blame him for any of my own issues with weight or dieting or food or the like. Over the years he has been both my partner in crime, like when I wanted to go for frozen custard and/or a fattening meal, and a tremendous support, like when I asked him to avoid bringing certain tempting foods into the house. I’m sure it’s been hard for him. Having a yo-yo dieter for a wife. But, without a doubt, I’d find maintaining healthy eating easier if he didn’t still bring “off plan” food home (even though he often does his best to hide them from me). Sometimes I can easily resist. Sometimes I fall prey to the siren call and give in. Sometimes I struggle so hard to resist that I eat all sorts of other foods instead. But I think what might frustrate me most, right now, is that he is somehow managing to slowly lose weight while indulging in (what I think most people would agree are) large portions of “unhealthy foods” like pizza and ice cream and candy. Oh my.
He’s doing his thing. I’m doing mine. My thing would be easier if his thing was the same thing. But, marriage is all about compromise and we each already do plenty of that. This post, which admittedly digressed a bit into our different “diet” lifestyles, isn’t about that at all. It’s about asking myself if his – or MY – size matters. Not what we eat… but the end result to our respective bodies.
Would it bother me if he was thinner than I? I can honestly say I don’t know. I don’t think so. But, maybe. Or maybe it would be motivation. Weight aside, what I can tell you is that being a petite woman with a tall husband has always made me feel safe and protected. But maybe that’s more because of the person he is than his size:)
What are your thoughts about that study? Do you ever consider anyone else’s size relative to your own? Do you know your BMI?
How Many Bloggers Does It Take to Screw in a Lightbulb?
None!
They light up a room all by themselves:)
Sharon, Cammy, Michele and me
My blogger meet-up weekend in Little Rock was fabulous. Filled with fabulous women who happen to be fabulous bloggers and are, not surprisingly, fabulous conversationalists while also fabulously fun and funny and now fabulous friends.
We talked about blogging. We talked about technology, blogging and not. We talked about subscriptions and how often we post and why we read the blogs we read and why we stop reading certain blogs. We talked about which bloggers we’d first discovered or who had first discovered us, and which bloggers have seemingly vanished. We talked about social media: the good, the bad, the ugly, and the confusing. And at one point we sat in a room with four laptops on four laps and shared photos and blog analytics and I was amazed at the wonder of it all.
We talked about the names of our current blogs. And our “other” blogs and non-blog writing projects that we we were working on in the past, present or future. And we talked about sharing our real names in the blog world and the pros and cons of anonymity. We talked about blog readership and blog monetizing and blog comments.
We talked about weight loss and regain and maintaining and what worked for each of us and what didn’t work. What we’d tried in the past. What we might try in the future. We talked weight loss plans and “non-plans” and about calories and protein and fiber. We talked about exercise and what we did and how long we did it and what we wanted to try and what we didn’t want to try and what we would love to do “someday” when we got together again and had bikes and beautiful weather.
We talked about cupcakes. And we laughed uproariously at our common technique for eating candy corn.
We talked about “womanly things” that would make men cringe. We talked about men readers. And men bloggers. And just plain men.
And yes, we did talk about the weather. And the city. And and where we each call home. And one of us even talked about baseball.
We talked about our careers – past, present and future. We talked about our ages. We laughed about our ages. We lamented and commiserated about aging. And all the while, I, for one, felt young at heart.
We talked about our struggles and our successes. And then we talked about our struggles some more. And the “whys” and what to do about it all. How to change things. We talked about our emotions and emotional eating. We talked about our challenges. And wondered why some things came so easy to some of us but not to others. And wondered why some foods trigger so many of us but not others.
We talked about ourselves and each other and other people, some in our lives and some in the media and some in cyberspace and some in our imaginations and some in our dreams.
We talked about serious stuff and inconsequential stuff; meaningful stuff and meaningless fluff. And then we talked some more. We talked “on topic” and we bounced all over the place. We talked fast and loud and all at one time; we talked quietly, seriously with rapt attention. We talked in the car and next to the car and waiting for a car. We talked non-stop except when we didn’t… and we were comfortable not talking too.
We talked about animal encounters: real and to be avoided. We talked about people encounters: real and to be avoided. We talked about the amazing talent of riding a bike while videotaping. We talked about finding a bathroom. And peeing in the woods. And talking on the phone in public restrooms. And texting. And not texting. And frugality and our wardrobes (or lack thereof) and country music and Broadway shows and restaurants we’d visited on the road. We talked about Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods and Panera. We talked about fro-yo. We talked about fro-yo some more.
We talked about health insurance and healthy eating and “healthy living” as a blog theme and we talked about healthy life/blog balance.
We talked about what we eat for breakfast. We talked about what we eat for lunch. We talked about how we snack or don’t snack; what we do and don’t eat. We talked about social eating and how, for most of us, our associations with food and family or food and celebration started at a very young age.
We talked about things familiar to us and thing unfamiliar to us. We talked about things we’d never tried and things we wanted to try. We had light bulb moments. We had great ideas for future blog posts.
We laughed. A lot. Sometimes at the craziest of things.
We talked about road trips. And our cars. And meeting other cyber-friends.
We talked about our pasts, our presents, and our futures.
There were hugs. And laughter. And even a few tears.
And above all, there was an amazing familiarity with each other and that great sense or comfort that comes from being oneself in the company of others who seemingly know everything about you and still like you:) There was admiration. And empathy. And understanding despite differences in lives and beliefs. And tolerance and acceptance. And a great balance of planning versus spontaneity.
We discovered ways we are very much the same and ways we are very different. We confirmed that our impressions of each other from the written world held true in real life. Authenticity shined through.
We talked and talked and talked some more.
It was wonderful.
This post is dedicated to my blog friends, those I’ve met and those I have yet to meet. Read more about the weekend and get to know my blog friends at their respective blogs:
Cammy@ The Tippy Toe Diet
Michele @ Healthy Cultivations
