Conventional thinking may suggest that people try as much as possible not to drink on days when they exercise or engage in other forms of physical activity, but a new study may suggest the opposite.
According to a study from the Center for Behavior and Health at Chicago’s Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, people do tend to drink more when physically active. “Monday through Wednesday people batten down the hatches and they cut back on alcohol consumption,” observed study author David Conroy. “But once that ‘social weekend’ kicks off on Thursdays, physical activity increases and so does alcohol consumption.”
Overall, a total of 195 individuals aged 18 to 89 were surveyed by the study group, with physical activity levels and alcohol consumption monitored accordingly. The subjects were observed for 21 days at a time, and for three separate times over a span of one year. As revealed by the study, the subjects were most active from Thursdays through Sundays, as compared to the Monday-Wednesday period, and also tended to drink more. There was no direct correlation revealed, however, between physical activity and increased alcohol consumption.
With that in mind, the researchers expressed that more research may be needed on the topic before they could draw a more definite conclusion. “It’s that on days when people are more active they tend to drink more than on days they are less active,” added Conroy. “This finding was uniform across study participants of all levels of physical activity and ages.” He also noted that the subjects may have used alcohol as a reward for working out, but it may also be possible that being physically active may lead to more social opportunities to consume alcohol.