Drinking Keeps Women Slim ?

These days many women (and men) are obsessed with their weight, and will try diet after diet and starve themselves to look like the skinny models on television. That's because we live in a somewhat schizophrenic country. While we have more food (and types of food) available than any country in history, and happily indulge in that abundance, we have let Madison Avenue and Hollywood define beauty for us.

While some African nations in which food can be a scarcity, see large women as beautiful, we do just the opposite. We eat our way to being overweight, and then view skinny as being beautiful. Common sense would say neither view makes sense.

Be that as it may, it looks like there may be a way to remain slim into mid-life that we haven't been considering (at least for women). A new study has shown that women who drink moderate amounts of alcohol (15 to 30 grams a day or one to two drinks) were 30% less likely to be overweight when they reach middle age. They were unable to judge heavy drinkers because there were not enough in the study to produce significant results.

The study was done by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. They studied data gathered from 19,220 women enrolled in their long-running Women's Health Study, and covered an average of 13 years. The study showed statistically significant results for all types of alcohol, but the best results were from red wine.

Sadly, men do not show the same effect (hence the "beer belly"). The researchers say this is because women burn up more calories after drinking than men do. As an overweight man, I have to think that is just unfair! [:-)]

Researchers warned against using alcohol as a dietary aid, and listed several other possible reasons for the results (other than the faster calorie burning). Women in the study who drank alcohol consumed fewer calories from other foods, were more likely to smoke, were more physically active, had lower body mass indexes at the study's start and had less healthful diets.

Like the researchers, I am not suggesting that women should all go out and become drinkers. Drinking alcohol, especially in large quantities, can have other deleterious health effects. I just found the study to be interesting, and thought you might also.