Tuesday 16 October 2007

"Wealthy areas head alcohol table" *

"Hazardous drinking - consuming between 22 and 50 units per week** - was highest in the Surrey area of Runnymede and lowest in the London borough of Newham", according to this report.

What a f***ing surprise. According to the 2001 Census...

1) "Newham has the second highest proportion of Asian population in England and Wales, with the second largest proportion of Bangladeshis in England and Wales (Tower Hamlets leads in both these statistics)".

They're not 'Asians' FFS. They are Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. Who are Muslims. Who tend not to drink alcohol.

2) "The proportion of the population under the age of 19 has increased by 23 per cent in this period, with a decrease of 11 percent in those aged 55 and over. Newham has a very young age structure, with the highest proportion of children under the age of one in the country ...".

Again, I think you'll find that very young children don't drink much alcohol.

* The headline itself is nonsense of course. There is a separate category for 50+ units called "harmful drinking", the areas most affected are the usual suspects: Manchester, Liverpool, Salford etc.

** Half a pint of beer or a teeny tiny glass of wine = 1 unit. So 22 units = one-and-a-half pints a day or two normal sized glasses of wine a day. And 50 units = three-and-a-half pints a day or just over a bottle of wine a day. So just enough to get a buzz on in the evening but hardly excessive.

2 comments:

Trixy said...

I am proud of my fellow Surreyites for drinking lots, and managing not to trash everything once we've had a sherbet or two.

Thatcher's Child said...

Very interesting cross linking. I hadn't gone as far as to look at who lived in the areas. Iwas still working out if 50 units was actually dangerous, and who said so!

Turns out, there isn't that much consensus on what is a safe amount of alcohol to drink in a week.

I wrote about it here -
http://dontmoan.blogspot.com/2007/10/drink-moderation-has-definition.html