Women Who Drink More Gain

¶ … Women who drink more gain less weight.

One much-forwarded March 8, 2010 New York Times article by Tara Parker-Pope proclaims this exciting news in its headline: "Women who drink more gain less weight." The article chronicled the result of a study published by the peer-reviewed journal the Archives of Internal Medicine. The thirteen-year study tracked the drinking habits of 19,220 American normal-weight women aged 39 and older. About 60% of the women were light or regular drinkers, while about 40% reported drinking no alcohol. The study, linked to the Times article on its website, found that there was an inverse relationship between alcohol consumption and increases in the women's BMI. Although all the women gained weight, the women who gained the least amount of weight were the heaviest social drinkers.

Although the population size was rather large, neither the study itself nor the Times article noted if there were any controls for income level and access to other forms of healthcare. The association between lower BMI and red wine was particularly acute, which could indicate that other variables, such as greater affluence amongst the drinkers, may have affected the results. Women who drink red wine may be of higher income levels and have greater access to exercise facilities and unprocessed foods. They also have more discretionary dollars to spend on 'non-food' items such as wine.

The study did not control which population group drank and did not drink -- the participants were instructed to engage in their daily lifestyle habits and self-report their drinking habits and BMI. This self-reporting could also be problematic, given that women with greater shame about their consumption might be less apt to report both food and alcohol calories. Women who drink moderately might also be more apt to appreciate and savor food and come from cultures such as France or the Mediterranean, where drinking with a healthy dinner is more common than in America. Eating meals socially has also been correlated with lower rates of obesity, and most of the drinking women consumed 'socially appropriate' levels of alcohol. Women who drank alcohol could also be more socially conscious of their appearance, and limit their dietary food intake for the rest of the day.