A team of Canadian researchers has published the results of a new study, according to which teenagers and young adults who drink alcohol more often have a significantly higher chance of being overweight or obese.
The new data comes from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, which tested high school students from 89 schools who filled out anonymous surveys. Among the questions were various lifestyle habits, including those about how often they drink alcohol.
As many as 39 percent admitted that they get drunk at least once a month, which includes at least five alcoholic drinks during a night out, and 11 percent drink that much at least once a week. All that alcohol translates into extra calories (as expected, sweet spirits have more calories).
Then, based on the data on the exact type of alcohol they consume (beer, wine, spirits) and what they eat, they calculated the average calories or kilograms that they could gain as an excess. For example, those who drank vodka once a week would consume 57 more calories per year than those who did not. In translation, this means a part of 7,5 kilograms more, reports Quartz.
This is one of the first studies that specifically dealt with obesity and fatness in young people, which is related to alcohol. One in five American children and 30 percent of Canadian children are either obese or significantly overweight. Earlier research was mainly concerned with how much added sugar in the daily diet affects these figures, reports Jutarnji.
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