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Americans consume excessive calories from alcohol

Category: General Wellness

According to a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), many Americans unknowingly consume large amounts of empty calories on a daily basis from beer, wine and hard alcohol, reported My Health News Daily. Males between 20 and 39 years old usually have the highest average daily intake of calories from alcohol - 175 - while women of the same age range tend to drink approximately 60 calories from alcoholic beverages a day. One of the researchers also noted that nearly 20 percent of men and 6 percent of women consume more than 300 calories from alcohol daily.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that males from 19 to 30 years old should only consume 2,400 total calories a day, while females in that same age group should only consume 2,000 calories a day. These numbers decrease for both genders as people get older.

"It's not insignificant, it's contributing to your total calorie intake for a day," said study author Samara Joy Nielsen, Ph.D., a nutritional epidemiologist for the CDC, as quoted by the news source.

Nielsen also reported that when people think about their calorie intakes, they tend to just think about the food they eat and forget about beverages.

The research was based on data from surveys conducted between 2007 and 2010 that asked participants who were at least 20 years old about the alcohol they consumed in the past 24 hours.

Other findings, according to USA Today, include the fact that women who are over 60 years old have the lowest calorie consumption from alcoholic beverages, with only 33 calories a day. The results of the CDC study also showed that there was little disparity between the caloric intakes of whites, blacks and Hispanics.

Excessive alcohol intake facts
There are myriad immediate health risks involved with drinking alcohol, according to the CDC, such as injuries like falling, getting burnt or getting into automobile accidents. Risky sexual behavior is also often attributed to alcohol consumption, such as having sex with various partners or having unprotected sex that can result in sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), which can be detected with STD tests. The CDC also notes that violence is a serious risk resulting from heavy drinking and that 35 percent of people who suffer abuse were injured by offenders who were under the influence of alcohol at the time.