Saturday 18 April 2009

Drinking makes you fat shock!

As if nobody had ever heard of a beer gut, the government are now launching a publicity campaign to inform people of the number of calories in alcoholic drinks. “Ministers are concerned that the average wine drinker now consumes around 2,000 calories from alcohol alone each month” – given that 2,000 calories is less than a thirtieth of the typical monthly intake, what on earth is there to worry about? I’m sure I consume far more than 2,000 calories from alcohol every week.

Although such scares are easy to dismiss, the problem is that they add to the steady drip-drip-drip of negative perceptions of drink. Committed boozers won’t be bothered, but those who are keen to “do the right thing” and follow official advice will be swayed, even though they probably don’t drink enough in the first place for it to be a problem. It is yet another small step towards the denormalisation of alcohol.

6 comments:

  1. The problem with posts like this is it is hard for me to comment when I agree with every word.

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  2. Thanks Dave :-D

    On a slightly different note, in my experience, genuine alcoholics tend to be pretty skinny, even emaciated. I am no expert, but presumably prolonged heavy drinking has an effect on your metabolism.

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  3. I lived in a pub from '84 to '91 and there was a regular who claimed Guinness was not only a drink but also what he termed "food" as he didn't need to eat as much.

    He drank far too much of it, but ate little. Again, scares like this are not likely to hit the people to whom they are intended. If anyone who drinks heavily is worried by the calories, they will probably just eat less.

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  4. I've not known many alcoholics but those I have have never been great eaters. Gets in the way of their drinking.

    I have no problem with the government issuing information like this as long as it is acurate, but I do agree it will no doubt help with the "denormalisation of alcohol".

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  5. Crikey, the health fascists will be telling us a Belgian fruit beer isn’t one of our 5 a day next. One argument is of course that information allows responsible adults to make informed choices, and I’ll confess when my trousers get tight and I want to drop a few pounds I cut back on the ale among other things (pud and chocolate mainly). The danger of this sort of direction in drink sensibly advertising, though, is how some people use it. Eating before going for a night on the pop has long been known to put a layer on your stomach, and is no old wives tale. Young women, many of whom do drink too much, and many of whom are dieting and calorie counting will choose not to cut back on the wine they neck when out with friends but compensate by not eating. Arguably an overall worse impact on their health and a case off unintended consequence if ever there was one.

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  6. "Drinking makes you fat shock!" Well, that's one mystery solved! (-;

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