Kids. Sex. Money. According to therapists, these are the most common topics married couples argue about. After recently talking with a number of counselors and clergy about common marriage problems they’re dealing with, Facebook should be added to that list. In fact, Facebook is one of the most popular relationship conflicts for today’s married couples.
Why would that be? With over 400-million users, Facebook has become the preferred communication vehicle for connecting with friends and family, and has quickly integrated into the daily routines of adults of all ages. In its wake, many spouses are grappling to keep up with their feelings towards their mates’ rate of reconnected relationships, degrees of convenience connecting to the online social network, and their level of devotion to the website.
In fact, based off the research for our book, Facebook and Your Marriage (which included personal interviews with Facebookers, conversations with therapists, surveying many blogs and websites, and reading the dozens and dozens of comments on Facebook) we’ve discovered that when a spouse says “Facebook is an issue in my marriage,” it is a cry for help without an understanding of what the real problem is.
They mistakenly blame the website when it is most likely one of these five common Facebooking issues.
AFP Relax
News that kids and teens get most of their excess sugar intake from food and not beverages may throw a wrench into a controversial debate about the role soda and juice have on childhood obesity.
In a study released February 29 out of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), researchers pointed out that kids are getting most of their excess sugar intake from processed foods including sugary cereals, granola bars, cookies and candies -- not sugary drinks like soda and juice.
Meanwhile, a slew of recent studies have placed the blame of childhood obesity squarely on the soda pop and juice industries.
For example, one study found that girls who developed a taste for soda by the age of five went on to have unhealthy diets throughout their adolescence, compared to their peers who were never given the sugary drink at that young an age.
Another study from last year claimed to find a "shocking" association between teenage violence and the amount of soda they drank: high school students from Boston who consumed more than five cans of sugary soda weekly were five to 15 percent more likely to engage in acts of violence.
And after doing a bit of number crunching, researchers out of the US also suggested that imposing a soda tax could prevent 100,000 cases of heart disease, 8,000 strokes and prevent 26,000 deaths every year.
The case against sodas and juices has motivated some countries like Hungary and France to impose such a tax, while some schools have implemented bans.
But when a team of US researchers went into schools across the country, they found that banning sugary drinks was ineffective and did little to reduce overall consumption, mainly because the kids were actively finding other ways to access them.
In the CDC study, about 16 percent of children's and adolescents' total caloric intake came from added sugars. The 2010 Dietary Guidelines recommends limiting sugars and solid fats to between 5 and 15 percent of daily caloric intake.
