Men who were small when they were born may be less likely to marry, a study from England suggests. The finding may explain why small size at birth is a risk factor for heart disease later in life, researchers propose.
Single men have high rates of cardiovascular disease and a shorter life span, they say.
The thought is that because you had a wife you had social support, and that social support is protective against disease. The smallest babies are two to three times more likely to die of heart disease. Given these two facts, we thought that maybe something that happens early in life, as indicated by birth weight, had something to do with getting married. To test the association, Phillips studied the birth records of 3,577 men born in Finland between 1924 and 1933, then looked at their school height and weight records at age 15. They then correlated the data with census information that showed their marital status.