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WE are more likely to play sport and eat up our fruit and veg, and less likely to puff on a cigarette.
But the healthy lifestyles of residents of Edinburgh and the Lothians are being let down by an old foe – the demon drink.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
" ‘Hazardous’ booze levels hit healthy Lothian lifestyles "
(24 posts)-
Posted 12 years ago #
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24% of adults are smokers? Really? I'd have sworn it's more like 5%... Maybe many are secret smokers or I hang around in the wrong circles.
Posted 12 years ago # -
There's one smoker in our office of ~40. I'm looking for the nine secret ones!
Posted 12 years ago # -
24% of adults smokers doesn't suprise me. In part it depends on the question asked too. Lots of folk are 'social' non-habitual smokers..
Posted 12 years ago # -
I think you do hang around in the wrong circles Kappers, in a way. Where I work - which is not the poshest part of town - it seems more like 75% of people who smoke. I have taken to carrying a lighter around with me as I get asked so often.
Posted 12 years ago # -
In my office, no smokers, but I do know an awful lot of people who are smokers outside of work.
With regard to alcohol, I like a glass or two every now and again, but it did come as quite a surprise to me that people drink alcohol during the week, and often even with their evening meal! This cannot be healthy.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Alcohol with the evening meal - No problem.
Alcohol INSTEAD of evening meal !!!Posted 12 years ago # -
With regard to alcohol, I like a glass or two every now and again, but it did come as quite a surprise to me that people drink alcohol during the week, and often even with their evening meal! This cannot be healthy.
It depends which health article you read. It is currently fashionable to tell people that red wine is good for their heart and to drink a glass with their meal. Although according to the article above, doing that every single day (for a female) amounts to binge drinking.
I do wish they'd just make up their minds.
We occasionally have a glass of wine with our meal. Yes, even during the week sometimes! I don't think that means we have an alcohol problem though.
Posted 12 years ago # -
"We occasionally have a glass of wine with our meal. Yes, even during the week sometimes! I don't think that means we have an alcohol problem though."
I think a good way to discover whether you are addicted to something is to abstain from it for a year, I tried and failed with junk food! How many folk could go without alcohol for a year?
Regarding health articles, hmm, anything which is processed by the Liver is clearly a poison, so not really sure how it can be good for you on any level?
Any time I partake, my body clearly tells me the next day that i have been poisoned ;)
*EdIt - I freely admit to having extremely conservative views on alcohol consomption, and many other things...
Posted 12 years ago # -
"It is currently fashionable to tell people that red wine is good for their heart and to drink a glass with their meal."
So I've heard - but somehow it never seems right with my Weetabix though.
Posted 12 years ago # -
So I've heard - but somehow it never seems right with my Weetabix though.
Lol, I think they mean with your evening meal. ;-)I think a good way to discover whether you are addicted to something is to abstain from it for a year, I tried and failed with junk food! How many folk could go without alcohol for a year?
I think if you were addicted to something, you would find out quicker than a year!
I would be asking myself why I was drinking so much long before I got close to "every day" but I think it is generally accepted that if you can't go a single day without something, then you are addicted.
Going without alcohol is difficult on a social level, as anyone who has done it will know. Sometimes people really really hassle you if you go out and don't drink. Sad really. What business is it of theirs?
Posted 12 years ago # -
Try drinking it from a glass as a supplement to the meal, rather than pouring it over the Weetabix instead of milk.
I could go without alcohol for a year. I can take it or leave it. I would miss it, and there would be nights when I really really wanted a glass of wine, but overall it wouldn't bother me.
Regarding health articles, hmm, anything which is processed by the Liver is clearly a poison, so not really sure how it can be good for you on any level?
The liver processes many things, most of which are not poisons. Alcohol itself is not particularly good for us, but our livers are well able to deal with it as long as we're not imbibing to excess. The health benefits of drinking come from the things that are in the alcoholic drink, rather than the alcohol itself - red wine being much more beneficial than WKD Blue.Posted 12 years ago # -
"I think a good way to discover whether you are addicted to something is to abstain from it for a year,"
I'm hopelessly addicted to air,water,and food.... oh and meth amphetamine.
Posted 12 years ago # -
I think a good way to discover whether you are addicted to something is to abstain from it for a year
Like driving cars?
Or.....(warning, heresy forthcoming)....riding bicycles????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted 12 years ago # -
The health benefits of drinking come from the things that are in the alcoholic drink, rather than the alcohol itself - red wine being much more beneficial than WKD Blue.
Hmm, I thought the 'health benefits of drinking' thing was a phenomenon caused by the fact that lots of really ill people can't/don't drink, thus making it seem like (population - ill people) is healthier than (total population).
I say this without knowing anything more than that, so it's just as likely to be an urban myth?
Posted 12 years ago # -
Addiction is a combination of dependence and tolerance. so for example you are a person who needs a drink (dependence) before speaking in public. You are not addicted unless you need a bigger drink (tolerance)'each time you speak
What people sometimes miss is you can have an alcohol problem with either dependence or tolerance without actually being an addict. So if like me you take the French approach and drink wine with your meal you may find you drink too much. insert ginger beer instead of wine on alternate nights and see how that goes.
Edinburgh is full of wine-aholics
Posted 12 years ago # -
I gave up the fags when my wife announced she was pregnant with our son - seemed the right thing to do, and it was becoming (!?) less socially acceptable anyway.
Having been a semi professional tabber since I was 13, and ramping it up to 20/day international by the time I was working, I reckoned I had given it a good go at that point, and like all seasoned pro's it was time to retire at the top of my game.
My last fag was in the bar in Frankfurt airport, Saturday 5th February 2005 on the way home from a skiing holiday. It sticks in the mind as we missed the flight from Geneva by 20 mins and travelled through airports / roads in France, Switzerland, Germany, Holland before arriving back in Edinburgh.
Come to think of it, I should have still been smoking after the stress involved there......
Posted 12 years ago # -
The other thing that worth adding to gembo's distinction is that the hazardous and harmful measures are supposed to be used as part of establishing a pattern of behaviour over a period of time. The last time I looked at the alternative measures in the survey, the estimates for dependence on alcohol were much lower, although that would make terrible headlines.
Being a pedant I was also irked by illogicality and non-sequiteur in the NHS Lothian guy's comment that "These figures do show that we all need to drink less." Err, no, not all. Maybe the 25% over the guidelines maybe some more for good measure but not all. And that, "This could be attributed to the wide availability of alcohol, as we know that 70 per cent of alcohol is bought through off-sales premises." This? What?
Posted 12 years ago # -
"Addiction is a combination of dependence and tolerance."
Not sure I would completely agree with that, my example of trying to give up junk food and failing I think makes me addicted to junk food. However, whenever I find myself at the McDonald's drive through, I never (so far at least) find myself needing 2 Quarter pounders to satisfy my craving?
I would say addiction is more psychological than physiological? Although of course there may indeed be physiological consequences due to consuming certain substances.Posted 12 years ago # -
I think by gembo's definition you're only dependent on junk food.
Posted 12 years ago # -
@ baldy cyclist. You have a dependence on junk food. When you crave it (due to the chemicals therein) you go to the drive in. Addiction would be you having to go every day or you eating so much they have to knock down your walls to get you out the house. In my opinion.
There is a psychological component to it but also physiological.
the landscape shifts of course. so when I worked at the addiction research group at the university of strathclyde in the 1990s we were part of the push to see gambling as an addiction with both psychological and physiological components. Addiction REsearch being the journal the prof John Davies was instrumental in setting up. We used to get calls then from concerned parents about kids blowing huge sums on video games. We were quite scathing of the narratives the parents employed for this type of activity as an addiction. Principally as we were sticking to the addiction = dependence + tolerance definition. now of course there are countless peoplenfixated on tour of duty etc.
I am not sure we were right then. There were similar behaviours with those playing the x-box and those on heroin. Stealing parents cash, deceit etc. but we thought it would be easier to pull the plug on the console than go cold turkey.
The other complicating factor which we were mad keen on was how we could shift people's explanations of their behaviours. THus when big Niall interviewed people about their consumption of drugs when he had a suit on he was given different answers when he was inhis denim jacket asking the same question. attribution theory was the name of our underlying perspective.
This is off topic except when we look at cycling as an obsessive behaviour. grumpy if we don't get out on the road. Etc. We are all dependent on cycling on this forum for sure but few if any are addicts?
Posted 12 years ago # -
If only to drag things further off-topic, the Wikipedia entry on attribution is interesting to read in the context of cycling.
Posted 12 years ago # -
The recent Cycling Cultures report found attribution effects depending on whether the researchers could be identified as also being cyclists.
Robert
Posted 12 years ago # -
My understanding (from GP uncle) is that a very small amount of alcohol (amounting to half a glass of wine a day) is probably better for you than none, but the benefits disappear quite rapidly if you have more than that. A lot of Americans have told me their doctors have advised them to take up drinking red wine specifically (I think it's the phenols or that may be chocolate) which always seemed a bit odd to me.
Regarding cycling, I'm definitely dependent - a week off the bike leaves me horribly grumpy and out of sorts. It's not quite heroin level but anyone in the grips of N+1 fever must surely be quite careless of the household finances ...
Posted 12 years ago #
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