It’s the season of elections and so much has happened already. Though the results have just started trickling in, there have been celebrations in many camps where the results released so far have favoured some contestants.
Of course, celebrations come with plenty of eating and drinking; and because of the free food and drinks, some people might develop certain problems that might ultimately send them to the hospital.
Binge drinking
For celebrations, alcoholic beverages are usually the drinks of choice, with a little quantity of soft drinks to serve as mixers should the need arise. And because the drinks are free and plenty, many people may be tempted to engage in binge drinking, as if to make up for lost opportunity or drink up a reserve for the future.
Nutritionist, Dr. Remi Omotunde, says binge drinking or heavy episodic drinking happens when people drink alcoholic beverages with the primary intention of becoming intoxicated by heavy consumption of the stuff over a short period of time.
Omotunde notes that binge drinking is capable of raising your blood alcohol concentration and could make you become drunk very quickly. It’s even worse when you drink on empty stomach, the nutritionist warns.
While he is not encouraging binge drinking, he counsels that if you must drink, in order to prevent the rush that you’re likely to experience if you drink on an empty stomach, let your drinking be accompanied by food. That way, you would not get drunk readily.
Binge drinking has so many downsides, Omotunde warns. He notes that it’s very possible for anyone to overdose on alcohol – a situation that can lead to breath cessation, while it can also make the heart to stop beating.
A professor of primary care at University College London, Paul Wallace, discloses that binge drinking puts a lot of stress on the liver and that it could even scar it!
“Human beings process alcohol at different rates – according to their body size, gender and even ethnicity – but your liver can only process approximately one unit of alcohol per hour. That being the case, if you drink too fast, it could take you to a level where your body may not recover from your activity,” Wallace enthuses.
“And if the binge drinker vomits, he could choke on his vomit. So, you want to be careful,” Omotunde adds.
The nutritionist says anyone could become a binge drinker even during a social outing and not necessarily when one does it every day.
He says, “Even if you don’t drink alcohol every day, you could be a binge drinker if you tend to drink quickly, or if you regularly drink more than the lower risk guidelines in a single session.
Again, he says, you could be a binge drinker if you sometimes drink to get drunk.
Eating too quickly
Some people pride themselves as fast eaters. This is because they can ‘out-eat’ anyone on any occasion. They simply gulp down the food as fast as they can, not minding the fact that they’re not even chewing their food! It’s free food and therefore, they want to load up on as much as possible.
Yet, experts say loading up on food in hasty manner has health implications for anyone. Gastroenterologists warn that eating too quickly at any given time is a route to early death. Experts say eating too fast overrides the mechanisms that tell your brain that you are full; and that when you make it a habit, your stomach may be unable to produce the hunger hormone, ghrelin, because you are always full anyway and you don’t need any hormone to help you know that you’re hungry.
Medical Director of Mart Life Detox Centre, Prof. Oladapo Ashiru, says when you eat too quickly, you’re likely to overfill your stomach and overeat. He adds that eating quickly could increase your risk of acid reflux, leading to the uncomfortable symptom we call heartburn.
Ashiru urges that whenever we eat, it’s a lot healthier to eat slowly and chew more. In fact, the professor of endocrinology says it’s advisable to chew your food for about 20 times before you swallow it.
That way, he says, you not only savour the deliciousness, the action enables the food to mix well with saliva and thus enable easy digestion within reasonable time.
“Since food digestion starts from the mouth, it is good to chew your food very well so that saliva can mix with it, thus enabling easy digestion in record time,” Ashiru counsels.
Emotional eating
Naturally, because it’s the election season and the chickens are already coming home to roost, the tendency for the contestants to find solace in food is real. Technically called emotional eating, experts warn that emotional eating is when people use food as a way to deal with feelings instead of to satisfy hunger. It is the habit of reaching for food due to boredom, anxiety, anger or even happiness.
Sociologists counsel that you give yourself a break. They say greater self-compassion is the first step toward learning to comfort yourself in other ways; and that the more aware you are of your inner experiences, the more you can choose how to cope with them.
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