| I opened one of my emails that I had a link to “Fitness Expert Jillian Michaels Reveals One Major Cause Of Excess Belly Fat”.
So I watched it. What was this “Major Cause”? Alcohol consumption. “It’s the Devil” according to Ms. Michaels. So do you need to re-enact prohibition in your house?
To read the rest of the article please go to our boot camp blog.
Let’s look at some stats. We will use the U.S.A. as the baseline for the two factors, obesity and alcohol consumption. According to the Dailymail UK the U.S. drinks the lowest amount of alcohol in the developed world. Below are some quotes from the article:
“The preferred drink in the U.S. is beer, accounting for 53 per cent of alcohol consumption, whereas in France the favourite drink is wine and in Russia it is vodka.”
“The U.S. also has one of the highest rates of people who abstain from drinking with 35 per cent of residents preferring not to drink.”
In another study published on BMC Medicine the frequency of alcohol use and obesity in community medicine patients was examined. Below is the abstract taken from the article:
Obesity is an important public health problem. However, the effects of alcohol use on the risk for obesity have not been thoroughly explored. This study focuses on how frequency of alcohol use is related to the risk of obesity in a community medicine clinic population.
Methods
This study used a cross-sectional survey to test the hypothesis that obesity (BMI > 30) is associated with alcohol use. The convenience sample was drawn from three clinics that primarily serve low-income populations. Independent variables included frequency of alcohol use, frequency of binge drinking, demographic characteristics, health behaviors and health status.
Results
In comparison to non-drinkers, people who consumed alcohol 3 or more days per month had lower odds of being obese (Adjusted Odds Ratio = .49, p < .04). As expected, there was a significant association between watching eight or more hours of television per day and obesity (AOR = 2.34, p < .01).
Conclusion
More frequent drinking and less television time are independently associated with reduced odds of obesity in this sample of community medicine patients. Additional research is needed to isolate casual mechanisms.”
One of the interesting conclusions based on their analysis is that those who abstained completely abstained had higher odds of being obese then those who consumed alcohol 3 or more days per month. Some of those performing the study and analyzing the data observed that those who are non-drinkers consumed more sugars.
So is Alcohol the “Devil” when it comes to obesity? It doesn’t appear to be.
However, Ms. Michaels was talking about “belly fat”. Alcohol is metabolized in a different way than and in a Swill laboratory study in 1992 it was observed that alcohol may block the body’s ability to burn properly. Alcohol also has a tendency to increase our appetite. The other thing to remember about alcohol is that it does contain what is called empty calories as it contains very few vitamins and minerals.
Alcohol has its place. There have also been studies that may suggest that certain types of wine may help us have a healthy heart. However, if you have that last little bit to go to get rid of the muffin top it may just be one thing that you may want to skip for a while. Of course we are already assuming that you have started an exercise program and a healthy eating regimen that has cut out processed and high calorie foods.
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