Career Women
For the last 30 years or so women’s place in society has been rapidly changing. Competing on more equal terms with men in the workplace has left women with more disposable income and social freedom.
The same period has seen a large shift in attitudes towards alcohol. With money and busier social lives, women are drinking more. Some studies have shown that professional women in their 20s and 30s with fewer family responsibilities tend to drink the most.
Key issues
If you’re single and socially active, alcohol can seem like it's everywhere. It’s there when you meet friends after work and when you go out to parties on weekends. Some rely on it to break the ice on dates or make networking at work events less nerve-wracking.
But even in small amounts, alcohol affects women differently to men and studies suggest that drinking heavily can cause more damage to a woman’s health than a man’s.
Most women are smaller than men and so metabolise alcohol at a different rate. Women have a proportionally higher ratio of fat to water than men and are therefore less able to dilute alcohol within the body. Because of this, women will tend to have a higher concentration of alcohol in their blood than men after drinking the same amount.
Women's livers also produce less of the substance the body uses to break alcohol down (an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase). Because of this, women generally get drunk quicker than men, and stay drunk for longer.
This means that drinking large amounts of alcohol is potentially more harmful to women than it is to men.
Women appear be more prone to serious diseases like cirrhosis of the liver and hepatitis after a comparatively shorter period of heavy drinking than men. And as well as serious health risks, women who drink heavily are also putting themselves at risk of a range of health and personal problems, including depression, disturbed sleep and compromised personal safety.
Risks
There is clear evidence from a number of studies that for a given level of alcohol consumption, women are more at risk than men for liver disease. Incidences of liver diseases in both men and women are on the rise. In 2007, 15,203 people died from liver disease in the UK. This includes 13,126 people in England and Wales , 1,667 in Scotland and 410 in Northern Ireland. Twice as many people now die from liver disease as in 1991*.
As well as serious diseases, heavy drinking can cause a host of minor physical and psychological problems. Depression and anxiety can lead to alcohol abuse, and vice versa, creating a vicious circle that is hard to break. Healthy habits like eating well and exercising regularly can be hard to instigate if you wake up hungover every morning.
Women who regularly drink heavily are also likely to take risks with their personal safety. A survey for Company magazine found that 60 per cent of respondents reported binge drinking. Half of these women admitted to waking up with no idea how they had got home, and one in 10 said they had to be escorted home by a stranger.
Alcohol consumption can also affect your chances of conceiving a child. And if you carry on drinking when you're pregnant, alcohol can pass through the placenta and damage the foetus. Children of mothers who drink very heavily in pregnancy can be affected by foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, a lifetime condition of varying severity.
Tips to moderate your drinking
- Feeling frazzled? Get out of the pub. Exercise can be a great stress buster. If you have a busy schedule, try cycling to and from work, or going for a brisk walk during your lunch hour.
- If you are going to drink, make sure you eat. And if you know you are going to a bar or party where there is no food available, have a protein rich snack first.
- If you are in a restaurant, don’t let the wine waiter – or your companion – keep topping up your glass. Politely explain you would rather pour your own, that way you can keep tabs on what you're drinking.
- When you go out in a group, try and avoid buying drinks in rounds. When you do this, you're forced to drink at the rate of the fastest drinker.
- …But if you do end up buying rounds, buy yourself a non-alcoholic drink every time it’s your round.
- If work colleagues ask you why you’re not drinking at work events, tell them you have a lot of work to catch on and you need to keep a clear head – they’ll admire your dedication.
- Schedule in healthy activities at weekends and before work. If you arrange to meet a friend at 9am for a yoga class you’ll be less inclined to overindulge the night before.
- Always plan how you are going to get home when you go out. If you are taking public transport, make sure you are familiar with routes and timetables. If you plan to take a cab, make sure you have the number of a reputable firm in your mobile.
Sources:
Drinkaware web site
- Page last updated by
- Matthew Bateman, 12 Jan 2010.
- Page checked on
- 16 Sep 2008.
