Parenting in America

Nearly three decades of research evaluating the impact of family structure on the health and well-being of children demonstrates that children living with their married, biological parents consistently have better physical, emotional, and academic well-being. Pediatricians and society should promote the family structure that has the best chance of producing healthy children. The best scientific literature to date suggests that, with the exception of parents faced with unresolvable marital violence, children fare better when parents work at maintaining the marriage.

Consequently, society should make every effort to support healthy marriages and to discourage married couples from divorcing. The demographics of families are changing, and with that, the philosophical underpinnings of relationships are also changing. Many young adults feel marriage is old-fashioned and confining, and that open cohabitating relationships provide a healthier option that is more conducive to personal development.

3. Cause for hope and concern. Over the past century, enormous progress has been achieved worldwide in improving human welfare. Societies have changed.

Poor nutrition and illness in childhood limit human growth. As a consequence, the average height of a population is strongly correlated with living standards in a population. This makes the study of human height relevant for historians who want to understand the history of living conditions. Because the effect of better material living standards is to make people taller, human height is used as an indirect measure for living standards. It is especially relevant for the study of living conditions in periods for which little or no other data is available — what historians refer to as the pre-statistical period.

It is important to stress that height is not used as a direct measure of well-being. The variation of height within a given population is largely determined by genetic factors. The history of human height allows us to track progress against undernourishment and disease and makes it possible to understand who started to benefit from modern advancements when.