A couple of things about alcohol...
2/3 of Americans over the age of 21 have drank alcohol in the last year. Do I have a highly skewed view of the American population or does this seem low? Out of everyone I know, I can think of only a few people who don't drink - my aunt and uncle, John's family, that's about it. I'd say less than 1/100 people I know haven't drank in the last year. As much as I'm sure that it's the South that doesn't drink as much, I still picture Southerners sitting on lawns drinking liquored up iced tea and mint juleps and lawyers in the South drinking whiskey in the afternoon and having drinking lunch meetings.
Maine's #1 alcohol is coffee flavored brandy. The state consumes more of it than any other state in the nation. Weird, but makes me wonder what the #1 liquor is in the other 49 states? Any guesses or confirmed #1s?
I like the idea of the Museum of the American Cocktail. It really exists in New Orleans. The city also has several other museums dedicated to food and drink.
The area of the United States, commonly known as the Bible Belt, is also known by doctors as "Stroke Alley".
2 Comments:
How about the fact that only 50% of people have had a beer in the last year? Do you really think if you did a random sample of people only half would have had a beer in the last year? Unbelievable. Not a single beer. Or that only 45% of people had drunk a glass of wine in that same year. What a sad life for 55% of the population! I realize there are alcoholics who shouldn't drink, but what are the rest of these people thinking?
Well, as a student of epidemiology working in an alcohol lab, i've got to say... those figures are right. Actually, the number of Americans drinking has been steadily decreasing for the last decade.
Here is the abstract of an article from a study that I am involved with: the National Epidemologic Survey of Alcohol and Related Conditions. Note: I know that it is totally wierd that "Alcohol" is a "condition", but I don't make the rules. The sample size was over 43,000 people in the U.S.(including... wait for it... Nathan Tylutki... isn't that random???).
BACKGROUND: The Healthy People 2010 goals include reducing the proportion of U.S. adults whose alcohol consumption exceeds recommended daily and weekly limits, relative to baseline levels observed in 1991-1992. To date, there has been no assessment of initial progress toward attaining these goals. METHODS: Consumption data from the 1991-1992 National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiology Survey (n = 42,862) and the 2001-2003 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (n = 43,093) were used to evaluate the trend in the proportion of U.S. adults adhering to and exceeding recommended drinking limits. These included weekly limits of no more than 14 standard drinks for men and no more than 7 standard drinks for women and daily limits of no more than 4 standard drinks for men and 3 standard drinks for women. The percentages exceeding the limits are compared for the two time periods, for the total adult population and sociodemographic subgroups, and the association between risk drinking and sociodemographic characteristics is disaggregated into a series of conditional odds ratios. RESULTS: The proportion of U.S. adults classified as regular drinkers whose intake exceeded recommended daily or weekly limits declined from 32.1% to 29.3% in the 10-year period. The reduction in risk drinking occurred solely among persons who exceeded the daily drinking limits less than once a week but did not exceed the weekly limits. There was a very small but significant increase in the proportion of adults exceeding the weekly limits, from 9.4% to 10.3%. Reduction of sociodemographic disparities in adherence to drinking limits was limited. CONCLUSIONS: Progress to date is limited and may reflect changes in population composition rather than changes in drinking habits. Attainment of Healthy People goals and reduction of disparities in risk drinking will require sustained effort and more targeted prevention programs.
Post a Comment
<< Home