Are you binging on food or alcohol?
If you're binge watching all 12 episodes of "Homeland," 13 of "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" or 10 of "Mozart in the Jungle," you're not alone. About 58 percent of Americans have binge watched a show. But bingeing isn't just for couch potatoes in training. Americans are super-bingers of alcohol and food, too.
One in 6 U.S. adults binge drinks. That's defined as having four or more drinks if a woman and five or more if a man, within two hours. But when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently examined data on 400,000 adults, they discovered that the average binge drinker does so 53 times annually, downing seven drinks each time!
The toll is profound: Health risks include car crashes, falls, burns and alcohol poisoning; violence, including homicide, suicide and domestic assault; STDs; high blood pressure, stroke, heart attack and liver disease; and cancer of the breast, throat, liver and colon.
And binge eating - overeating compulsively, often in secret and when not hungry - is also more common than previously realized. It affects 2.8 million people in the U.S. The health risks are obesity (two-thirds of bingers are obese), as well as arthritis, sleep apnea, some cancers, heart disease, high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes (much the same as binge drinking).
For binge drinking and binge eating, seek counseling and 12-step programs, work with your doctor to improve your health, and learn mindful meditation to ease depression or anxiety. If you're binge watching TV, get up and move around every 30 minutes, or only binge watch while on a treadmill or exercise bike. Then, you'll be the star!
Distributed by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
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