In honor of St. Patty’s Day, and me being Irish…I’ve decided to do a little research of the effects of alcohol and obesity/weight gain.
In Ireland, 1 in 5 children are obese
(http://www.ihf.ie/news/foodforkids/obesity.htm)
In the United States 40% of obese children and 70% obese adolescents become obese adults.
Both statistics are very high, but the US is constantly “upping” other countries because we tend to have larger portions than most other countries.
In a study called Drinking Alcohol Associated with Obesity published by About.com, men and women who drank the least amount of alcohol per week (about one drink per day, 3 days a week) generally had the lowest BMI.
Ting Kai Li, M.D. the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) Director of this study states that obesity is a high risk for numerous chronic illnesses and early death. Having a high alcohol consumption will only make shorten the projected lifespan because it can damage your liver quicker than if you were not obese. The way to assess alcohol consumption is through its quantity and frequency relevancy. Days drinking alcohol vs. how often you have drink days.
The reason why so many people associate alcohol use with rapid weight gain is because of its high calorie intake and the fact that it will usually target hunger, even after you consumed all of the liquid calories.
Drinking alcohol can affect the body’s metabolism because it will store the alcohol as fat rather than using it as fuel because it messing up the body and mind when consumed. Stereotypically, smoking will coincide with drinking, which can further lead to more cravings for food because the mind thinks that it is getting less than what is actually getting. The body is constantly working to burn off those calories but the mind doesn’t realize how much calories it already has consumed in liquids and sugars.
So if you were wondering if there was a correlation between obesity and alcohol...there is.
No comments:
Post a Comment