Woman Binge Drinks For 30 Days

The results aren't pretty. Before and after:

Okay, okay, I don't buy that either. The woman did this when she was 39; obviously that first pic is from her late twenties, tops. But that second pic-- that's not a normal 39 year old, either. Looks more like 55.

That deceptive dramatic flair out of the way:

Over 30 days, going out five nights a week, Nicky consumed a staggering 516 units of alcohol -- 17.2 units a day. Guidelines say women should drink no more than two or three units a day, and a maximum of 14 a week.

One unit is 8g of alcohol, or a small glass (125ml) of wine, half a pint (284ml) of beer or a pub measure of spirits. But stronger beers may contain 2.5 alcohol units per half pint.

Nicky hopes her experiment will open people's eyes to the gravity of binge-drinking in the same way Morgan Spurlock's film Super Size Me (in which the American filmmaker ate McDonald's for 30 days) did to the dangers of junk food.

"What I discovered shocked me to the core," says Nicky, who was monitored by medical experts during the experiment.

...

Her body fat increased from 37.4 per cent to 38.9 per cent, she put on more than 3kg, and her skin became so damaged she had the complexion of a 50-year-old.

...

"I was drinking the equivalent of about 2000 calories a night and developed a big tyre of fat around my stomach. I also became really depressed."

Hey, I never said the Ace of Spades Lifestyle(TM) was a wise option. I just said it was an option.

I hope we see the end of this sort of stunt-documentary. Someone's going to wind up dead.

And do we really need documentaries telling us that eating at McDonald's three or four times a day (always supersized) or drinking like fish five nights a week is unhealthful?

My problem with Supersize Me was the liberal condescension of it all. It wasn't made to actually alert people to the dangers of eating at McDonald's so much; it was made so liberal art-house movie-goers could chuckle in superiority at how the other half lives.

Well, actually, how the other half doesn't really live at all, but they pretend that maybe a lot of people are eating like this, so they can once again feel superior.

posted by Ace at 02:08 PM

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