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When couples divorce, it generally leads to worse habits, worse health, and a quicker death. “They live happily ever after, if they are happy”.
“Till death do us part”
Now I don’t know if it’s ironic, contradictory, or poetic. When you get married, traditionally you do so until death do you part. But if you divorce before death, then death usually follows sooner. I can already hear the pastor saying it.
“But getting married makes you fat, which isn’t healthy,” the observant reader among the single churchgoers might think. That same reader also knows that it’s questionable whether you’ll lose those extra pounds after a divorce or if you’ll get even heavier. But aside from the weight, marriage can hold your health hostage in multiple ways.
Okay, that sounds very dramatic. Marriage generally has positive effects on mental and physical health. So, apparently, you can also lose weight when your partner is on a diet. Handy! But such benefits also disappear when you separate.
There are increasingly more studies showing a connection between divorce and negative health effects, including premature death. Researchers from the University of Arizona recently tried to demonstrate the explanation for that connection [1].
Their research identified two possible causes: a higher likelihood of smoking and less physical activity.
Quicker death after a divorce
The most obvious explanation for worse health after a divorce can be found in behavioral changes. Kyle Bourassa of the University of Arizona explains:
We know marital status is associated with both psychological and physical health, and one route from divorce to health risk is through health behaviors, like smoking and exercise. We also know that health behaviors are often linked to psychological variables, like life satisfaction.
So, forget about the happily divorced idea. Bourassa and his colleagues based their conclusions on data from a large-scale, long-term study of Britons over 50 (English Longitudinal Study of Aging). They had seven sets of data collected every two years since 2002. In total, they analyzed data from 5786 participants, of which 926 were divorced and not remarried. The rest were married.
The researchers examined self-reported behaviors in the data such as physical activity and smoking status. They also tracked how many people died during the study. It turned out that people who went through a divorce had a 46% higher chance of dying during the study than the (still) married participants.
More smoking, less exercise after a divorce
Especially for women, the impact of a divorce on life satisfaction was significant. This lower life satisfaction was a good predictor of lower levels of physical activity, which in turn are associated with earlier death. Divorced participants also smoked more frequently, had worse predicted lung function, and thus had a higher chance of dying earlier.
The researchers controlled for other known risk factors such as gender (those weak men), self-reported health, and socio-economic status.
So, the saying gets a bit of a different meaning. They live happily ever after, if they are happy.
‘Under the thumb’
The old ball and chain. Or ‘under the thumb’ as we might call it. But that thumb keeps you healthy.
The researchers did not specifically investigate why a divorce increases the likelihood of smoking and reduced physical activity. Based on existing research, they consider that this may be due in part to the loss of ‘thumb’. The loss of a partner who holds you accountable for your lifestyle.
Partner control of health might play a role. If you imagine a husband or wife who doesn’t smoke and their partner does, one might try to influence the other’s behavior. In many ways, when relationships end, we lose that important social control of our health behaviors.
Further research should also focus on other health risks such as diet and alcohol consumption. Also, the effect of a deceased partner and remarriage should be examined. Moreover, it is unclear whether these results translate to younger partners who have had enough of each other.
Happily divorced
The researchers emphasize that this does not mean that divorce always makes life worse. The quality of life significantly improved for those who left an unhealthy relationship. If the researchers could also briefly mention the criteria for ‘an unhealthy relationship’, that might be much more interesting. But that’s beside the point.
However, because divorce is generally associated with worse health, such studies could provide useful interventions for this. By making people going through a divorce aware of the higher risk of unhealthy behavioral changes.
Bourassa explains:
“We have interventions for people who smoke, and we have interventions for people who don’t get enough exercise, so if we know someone who is divorced, maybe we should ask, ‘Are you smoking? Are you getting enough physical activity?'”
If you’ve just been divorced, you still have someone nagging at you.
References
- Kyle J Bourassa, John M Ruiz, David A Sbarra. Smoking and Physical Activity Explain the Increased Mortality Risk Following Marital Separation and Divorce: Evidence From the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 2018;
- https://academic.oup.com/abm/article-abstract/53/3/255/5001545
