By Christy Barritt

Last Comes Marriage?

According to analysis by the National Center for Family and Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, today’s young, educated couples are waiting longer to get married.

The study showed that the median age of first marriage for women is 26.6, which is the highest figure since 1890. Researchers said that couples today don’t consider themselves ready for marriage until they are educated and financially stable. They also say that marrying when older makes couples more likely to stay married than their younger, less-educated counterparts.

Only 47 percent of women are married now, which is down from the 1950 peak of 65 percent. The study also found that more couples are living together and having children without marriage. However, analysts said that cohabitating couples are more likely to split than married couples.

More than Half of Americans Believe in Evolution

Pew Research has found that 6 in 10 Americans believe in evolution. Their results showed that only 33 percent of Americans believe that humans have existed in their present form since the beginning of time. The percentages have remained about the same as they were in 2009.

However, many Americans believe that God or a supreme being played a role in the process of evolution. Twenty-four percent of adults said that “a supreme being guided the evolution of living things for the purpose of creating humans and other life in the form it exists today.”

Eat Too Much? Blame Your Friends

A new study published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics has found that our eating habits are influenced by our need to fit in.

Data from 15 different studies were examined to determine how societal norms influence what we eat and how much we eat. The bottom line was that people ate more or less when others around them ate more or less. They also found that people made healthier choices based on the choices that others made.

The study concluded that messages portraying healthy eating as a societal normal could help alter people’s eating habits for the better.

Milestones for 2013

Pew Research Center released its list of data milestones for 2013. The results might surprise you. Here are a few:

• A majority of Americans (52 percent) favor legalizing the use of marijuana.

• Most Americans (52 percent) agree that the U.S. should mind its own business internationally—the highest number in nearly a century of polling.

• At its highest point in two decades, 38 percent of Americans do not want their own representative in Congress reelected.

• For the first time, 53 percent of Americans said that the federal government threatened their personal rights and freedoms.

• The highest number of young adults (36 percent) aged 18-31 now live in their parents’ home.

• Out of the 317 million people in America, the U.S. now has a record immigrant population of 40.4 million.

• A record high, 56 percent of U.S. adults own a smart phone.

• Now 50 percent of people use the Internet as a main source for national and international news.

Christy Barritt is an award-winning author, freelance writer, and speaker living in Chesapeake, Virginia. She and her husband Scott have two sons.
www.christybarritt.com