Would you rather have a cheeseburger or a frozen margarita? The calories are roughly the same, as are the calories for a pint of lager and a slice of pizza. If you think alcohol is just too liquid to be calorific, you’re in good company. Only 20% of us know how many calories are in a large glass of wine (228). The Local Government Association, which promotes public health issues, is campaigning for calorie information to be on alcoholic cans and bottles – as it is on soft drinks. It says alcohol provides only “empty calories” and interferes with how efficiently the body burns fat.
The solution
A study in the Archives of Internal Medicine, of 19,220 women whose drinking was followed for nearly 20 years, found that the risk of becoming overweight was almost 30% lower for women who were light to moderate drinkers. (Moderate was defined as two five-ounce glasses of wine or bottles of beer a day for men, and one for women.) An extensive review of the evidence in Current Obesity Reports found that moderate drinking was not associated with weight gain.
However, it is not the moderate drinking that maintains weight but the healthy behaviour associated with it, says Professor Jean-Philippe Chaput of the faculty of medicine at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, lead author of the review. People who drink sensibly usually exercise and eat healthily too. “If your goal is to lose weight, give up alcohol,” he advises. “If you want to maintain weight, then moderate drinking may be fine, but you need to eat less and exercise more – if you add alcohol on top, you add calories.” He warns that binge drinking will put weight on, especially around the belly for men and the bottom for women.
Alcohol stimulates appetite – it makes salty peanuts strangely irresistible. But, Chaput warns, the metabolism of alcohol and its effect on weight depends on many factors, including genetics. Studies of Finnish, Chinese and British men show increases in weight after more than five years of moderate drinking. Women may metabolise alcohol in a way that uses up more energy – leaving less fat to be deposited. But Chaput’s key message is that we shouldn’t look at just one thing – in this case, alcohol – but at our overall health. And we shouldn’t be fixated with dieting anyway. “Instead of measuring weight, we need to measure health,” he says. A sentiment to which you can’t help but raise a glass.
