Married men are fat and healthy

This Wash Times story says:

Married adults are more likely to be healthier — physically and mentally — than divorced, widowed, cohabiting or never-married adults, a new federal report says.

Regardless of age, sex, race, education, income or nationality, married adults were least likely to be in poor health, suffer serious psychological distress and smoke or drink heavily, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) says in its new report, which reviews health data gathered from more than 127,000 adults from 1999 to 2002.

The only category in which married adults fared poorly was weight — and this was primarily because married men were more likely to be heavier than other men, the study says. ...

"Wives are especially good at what social scientists call 'social support' and ordinary people call 'nagging,' " said columnist Maggie Gallagher, who heads the District-based Institute for Marriage and Public Policy.

"And it turns out the nagging works: People who are reminded to do healthy things like wear your seat belts, eat vegetables, exercise or go to the doctor, actually do them more often than people who aren't reminded," said Mrs. Gallagher ...

If Gallagher's theory were correct, then why can't wives nag their fat husbands into losing weight? Here is an alternate theory:

Do you know why single men are skinny and married men are heavy?

The single man goes to the fridge, doesn't see anything good, so he goes to bed.
The married man goes to bed, doesn't see anything good, so he goes to the fridge.

There are other theories for the health difference also. Maybe most women will only marry a healthy man, and divorce him if his health goes bad.