Child Care Quality May Impact Children's Behavior and Academic Performance
Low-quality child care in a child's first four years of life may lead to small, yet persistent behavior and academic problems, according to a new federal study, which followed more than 1,300 kids for two decades. Because these difficulties continued through their 15th birthdays, the problems could be lifelong, The Washington Post reports. The new findings indicate that more emphasis on high-quality early child care is needed, experts told the Post. Researchers evaluated participants' academic and cognitive skills and gave parents and teachers questionnaires about their teens' behavior. The study, they said, was started in 1991 out of concern about parents' increased use of outside child care. Quality of child care was based on several caregiver factors, including emotional support, sensitivity, warmth, and the amount of intellectual stimulation they provided to children in their care, the Post reports.
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For Women, Marrying Men Much Older or Younger in Age May Mean Shorter Lifespans
Women who marry men who are more than a few years older or younger than them may have shorter life expectancies than women who marry men closer to their age, according to new research from the Germany-based Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, published in the journal Demography. In fact, the larger the age difference between a woman and her husband, the shorter her life expectancy, regardless of whether she was older or younger than her mate, the researchers found. But the reverse didn't hold true: In men, the younger his wife, the longer he lived, the researchers said. In the U.S., grooms are on average 2.3 years older than their brides, the study reports.
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Few Diagnosed With Prediabetes Take Action to Prevent or Treat Type 2 Diabetes
Nearly 60 million Americans have prediabetes, about 70 percent of whom will develop type 2 diabetes in their lifetimes, according to a 2007 study published in Diabetes Care. Most are overweight. Yet prediabetes, defined as being at high risk for type 2 diabetes, often goes undiagnosed, writes U.S. News contributor Hope Warshaw. A study published in April in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine estimates that just 7 percent of people with prediabetes have been told they have it. Of this small number, only half were taking action to prevent type 2 diabetes, such as by trying to lose weight and increasing physical activity. And just a third had been counseled by their healthcare providers about how to reduce their risk. [Read more: 4 Ways to Prevent and Treat Prediabetes.]
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