Does Beer Gives You A Beer Belly?
This myth is featured in "Is it just me or are situps a waste of time" ( see home page) and boy has it caused a stir. The media picked up on it and decided to use it as an attention grabber and a revelation for all men who enjoy the odd pint or 20.. Great for publicity, but its amazing how many people still disagree with the answer, despite the evidence. Once you have read the answer this question, click on the newspaper logos below and see for yourself the coverage this question has received. (I particualry like comment number 12 in the Digital Jouranl article - and i thought i was doing blokes a favour)
The beer belly is a British Institution and the closest men will ever come to experiencing pregnancy. Beer has often been blamed for the pot-bellied appearance of some men but one question that is often raised is whether beer is actually the culprit for making men permanently look nine months’ pregnant. To answer this question properly, you need to look at the two parties involved – beer and men.
Beer comes in a variety of forms. Lager, bitter, ale and stout may all look and taste different but one thing they have in common is calories. Although a pint of beer is over 90% water it also contains alcohol (8kcal per gram) and carbohydrates (4kcal per gram), with the average pint containing around 150kcal. Even a modest week for a heavy drinker throwing back 5 pints a night adds up to an impressive 5,250kcal.
Men also come in a variety of shapes and forms but before you can reach the conclusion that beer is responsible for their enlarged stomachs, lifestyle must be considered too. Although it is always dangerous to make generalisations, I think it’s fair to say that for the men who drink anywhere close to 5,000kcal worth of beer every week, their food of choice is unlikely to be a rocket salad with grilled chicken and cherry tomatoes.
The dietary habits of heavy beer drinkers are usually synonymous with a high-calorie diet such as curry, pizza, fish and chips and Chinese takeaway. Throw into that a distinct lack of exercise, besides the occasional game of darts or skittles, and men with beer bellies are generally not what you would regard as great health specimens.
Beer may not be as healthy or nutritious as a fruit smoothie but it cannot be held solely responsible for the ‘beer belly’. The culprits are excessive calories, lack of exercise and man’s predisposition to deposit fat on the abdominal region. To back this up, a study in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition highlights a survey carried out in the Czech Republic. Almost 2,000 Czechs were surveyed and, after a variety of tests, no link could be found between the amount of beer people drink and the size of their stomachs. Good news for men, bad news for nagging wives.
