PERVERSE ALCOHOL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 December 1938, Page 2

PERVERSE ALCOHOL

STOUT PEOPLE MADE STOUTER AND THIN PEOPLE THINNER. Alcohol calories misbehave to make you fatter or thinner in perserve ratio to your need (writes Ida Jean Kain). The most significant thing about alcohol is that it si rapidly converted into energy and burned in proportion to the amount present in the tissues. With food, activity determines the amount used, but with’ alcohol the calories are burned as soon'as the tissues are saturated.

Overweight can begin with alcohol, for while these uncontrollable calories are being used, the food calories are diverted into storage. Very few men realise the fattening potentialities of alcohol.

You wouldn’t think of tossing off three eggs as a nightcap after a heavy dinner, but as far as energy goes a double whisky and soda is just about equal to three hard-boiled eggs! A jigger (three tablespoons) of whisky contains 100 calories, and anything approaching a convivial evening contributes more than a few hundred calories to your energy surplus. The more alcohol calories you consume the more food calories are packed around your waistline.

Suppose that during the day you take 3,500 food calories, which, if you are a sedentary worker, is several hundred in excess of your needs, since you bum about 16 calories per pound of body weight. Then, if during the evening you add another 300 to 400 calori'es in beverages other than Adam’s ale, you will wind up with 8000 to 1,000 calories too many —all of which conservatively means extra pounds at the rate of one a week. ■ ”

Aside from the caloric content of alcohol, . quantity is a factor. Large amounts of liquid, such as beer and ale, not only give from 225 to 260 calories per pint, but distend the stomach and increase food capacity. This defeats one of the first principles of successful reducing, which is to shrink the stomach and thereby lessen the appetite. The paradoxical behaviour of alcohol calories for the underweight lies in the fact that the thin man who drinks invariably does not eat as he should. If he does eat while drinking he often Joses his food. The digestive apparatus of the nervous underweight is none too good at best, and there is evidence that alcohol further interferes with and prevents the proper digestion and ashimilation of food.

Also, when a large part of the caloric intake is derived from alcohol, a seriouslack of vitamins develops and nervous symtoms appear, so that he does not get the rest he needs. Tq ensure vitamins and minerals along with your calories, a doctor says to take milk as a chaser—one 8-ounce glass of milk for every -ounce of whisky. The milk delays absorption of the alcohol and prevents the nervous jitters. There seems to be nothing so 1 perverse as alcohol. Being a stimulant, it depletes vitality, and if you are thin you get thinner. On the other hand, alcohol encourages a large appetite, and while burning the alcohol calories you store food calories. All in all. there is little to be said for alcohol in either a gaining or reducing programme.