23 August 2007

The average adult in the UK is drinking an extra day’s worth of calories every week through alcohol, according to a study by Standard Life.

The average adult is drinking enough lager, wine, cider and spirits to add almost 3,000 calories to their weekly calorific intake.

This is the equivalent to 500 calories above the average male recommended daily limit of 2,500 calories and 50% more than the advised maximum of 2,000 calories a day for a woman.

Annually UK adults are drinking around 155,000 calories through alcohol, adding to the country’s growing obesity problems. With 3,500 extra calories creating one pound of fat, adults are drinking enough alcohol each year to add 44lbs to their bodyweight, or just over three stone.

Men are downing the most calories through alcohol, just short of 200,000 calories annually. On a weekly basis men are consuming 3,836 calories through drink which equates to one and a half days of extra calories a week. Normal strength lager (3% proof) and Continental lager (around 5%) are men’s favourite alcoholic drinks, closely followed by wine and spirits.

But the study found that women are not far behind men in the alcohol adding calorie stakes. The average female is drinking more than 2,100 calories through drink each week which adds up to 110,000 each year. Small and large measures of red and white wine are the main source of alcohol calories for women followed by spirits, lager and alcopops.

Mick James, Protection Marketing Manager for Standard Life said: “These numbers paint a stark picture of how Britain is heading towards alcoholic induced obesity. With clear links to the incidence of diabetes, hypertension, heart attack and other cardiovascular conditions, obesity is of growing concern to public health. There is also a degree of evidence to suggest obesity has actually been reversing the improvements in mortality, made as a result of improvements to medicine. Society seems to be making choices to shorten its life expectancy.”

more  at http://www.easier.com/view/Lifestyle/Health_and_Fitness/Health/article-135300.html

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 29th, 2007 at 9:45 pm and is filed under Weight Loss Advice, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.