Illustration: Sports, Marriage

Say all you want about couch potatoes. Just to show you how inaccurate a stereotype can be, Sports Illustrated once quoted research that challenges our perception of spectator sports fans.

A study at Ball State University in Indiana concluded that sports fans had higher grade-point averages than non-sports fans, and similar work at the University of Kansas found that people who identified themselves as sports fans had lower rates of depression.

The Kansas study showed that 93 percent of the time, a partner's sports interests had a positive or neutral effect on his or her marriage. In that case, you ought to thank your spouse for vegetating in front of the TV. Maybe it's keeping you together. (from The Wolf Files, ABC news e-newsletter, 8-24-04)