Tuesday, August 21, 2012

I'll Get Fat and You'll Get Drunk As We Go Our Separate Ways


Men tend to drink more when they get divorced, while women tend to eat more.

Duh.

Of course they had to do a study, because a study has never been done before so they didn't actually KNOW this. Let me go out on a limb and say it wasn't done before because everyone knew this.

But what about later in life and when marriages end, especially due to divorce? That's where the new study comes in. 
Reczek and colleagues examined the results of U.S. surveys conducted in 1993 and 2004. They looked at just over 5,300 people (who were aged 53 and 54 in 1993) and tracked them over time. In addition, they interviewed 130 people directly.
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"We find that unmarried and divorced women actually drink less than their continuously married counterparts," she said. "For men, those who were recently divorced have the highest number of drinks and men who are married have the lower number." 
For women, the average number of drinks per month was nine for those who were married and 6.5 for those who were divorced over that time; for men, the numbers were 19.2 and 21.5, respectively. For those who got divorced during that period, the average monthly number of drinks per month was 10 for women and 26 for men. 
What's going on? In some cases, women said their husbands introduced them to alcohol, Reczek said, so "they just drink more because their husbands drink more. Women talk about how when they get divorced, they lose the person encouraging them to drink." 
As for men, they tend to turn to alcohol to cope with stress as compared to women who turn to food or family members, she said. It's also possible that single men are more likely to hang out with their male friends who enjoy an intoxicating beverage, Reczek added.

We are the dumbest nation of experts in the history of the world. There was a time when we knew that the wisdom of our shared experiences meant something; now we don't know squat until an expert has done a study and tells us what is true.

I give up.

I feel a song coming on.....




21 comments:

  1. "Let me go out on a limb and say it wasn't done before because everyone knew this."

    Of course, but these studies will be done anyway even though the people doing the studies know this because of the grant money usually involved.

    Follow the money. Which is why all the bullshit studies on global warming. Funded.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I need to figure out how to get funding to discover why my dog sniffs the cat's butt or why my teen-aged daughter rolls her eyes at me or why she listens to music as loud as that when she has "young" ears.

      Actually there are lots of things I could study.

      Delete
  2. Let's see if we can funding for a study to determine if there's an in crease or decrease in housecleaning and laundry loads once women get divorced. I bet no one knows how that one will turn out, either.

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    Replies
    1. We definitely need a study to determine that. There's no way you could know which direction measurements of workload relative to housecleaning, cooking and laundry would move after a divorce. None.

      We also need to do studies to determine if the remotes for the TV are found more regularly in their assigned spot, whether there is a change in the hours of football watched, and whether the woman continues to repeat herself over and over after a divorce.

      hahaha!

      Delete
    2. FYI - count me out for the housecleaning study. I'm more of an observer than a participant when it comes to housecleaning. Just ask the tumbleweeds of dog hair in my living room.

      Delete
  3. Plus we've got hundreds or thousands of "experts" in various specialties. They've got to do something to justify their existence even though it may not be of any real value.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's the negative consequence of insisting that every kid go to college. You eventually have a nation of "experts" busily
      jerking everyone'e chains and stating the obvious.

      I went to college, but I didn't learn a damn thing, so I'm safe. I'm the original DIY knucklehead. My kids tease me that I could do brain surgery if there were instructions. I might not be able to do it, but I would attempt it! LOL!

      Delete
    2. and what's the definition of an expert? Answer according to my young niece is "X is an unknown quantity and a spert is a drip under pressure"... Bahaha! - good one, niece...

      Delete
  4. In your divorce document state the facts of the situation at the beginning of the letter.

    Legal Divorce Letter

    ReplyDelete
  5. Men drink; women eat; and attorneys make extra trips to the bank.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. ****and attorneys make extra trips to the bank.*****

      And at the end of it all you're drinking and over eating because of the depression from having no money.

      Delete
  6. It's all explained in the latest USA Today pie chart, people.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Have a moon pie martini. It covers pretty much everything. The thing that stuck out to me was the 'tracking over time'. i.e. they were paid grant money(read: our tax dollars) over time to conduct this very important study. I thank God that it answered all my questions.

    The 2nd most hilarious part is the scientific aspect. If someone were to ask me how many drinks I had last month, my exact answer would vary from how many times I was with family or other drinkers, whether I celebrated any birthdays and my general mood. In a bad mood, I would count them up pretty exactly. In a normal mood I would estimate and the difference could be 3-4 drinks easy.

    The winner and most hilarious are the numbers themselves. My family is well adjusted, we all like/love each other, and most of us are drinkers. Anyone in my family (at least when I see them) male or female averages 3-5 drinks per NIGHT. Really? People in the study average 6.5 to 21.5 per month? I'll bet no one from WI was in the study. And I'll also bet the difference between men and women is PC norms. Men can expect respect from other men for saying a high number. It is manly to drink. Women could expect labels such as slut or bad Mom if they admitted to drinking 30-50 drinks per month, so they don't.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah. When are researchers ever going to realize that people lie. Unless these researchers were living WITH THEM, what they do and what they admit to are two entirely different critters.

      30 drinks per month? That's only 1 a day. I consider that number to be a public service I do because I care. Otherwise divorce would be the LEAST of the public's worries. Think bell tower, automatic weapon...yeah...like that.

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    2. "When are researchers ever going to realize that people lie."

      And when are people who believe these 'surveys' going to get the fact that most researchers have agendas, in that they are going to look for data that support there own view. The old saying most definitely applies; "You can make the data confess to *anything* if you torture it enough" :)

      Delete
    3. *** "You can make the data confess to *anything* if you torture it enough" :)***

      OMG! I love that. I'm using it five times today so that I'll have it for life. LOL! HAHA!

      Delete
  8. It should be pretty clear that the reason men appear to drink less when married is because their wife is always on their ass about how much they drink.

    That, and they TOTALLY lied to the survey.

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