Is it healthier to be 2 stone overweight or drink half a bottle of wine a day?

No. Just sounds like an alcoholic trying to justify their drinking habits.

It is as previously discussed a silly question, false dichotomy and too many variables. If I had to choose, though, I'd rather be overweight any day. Being overweight does have a negative impact on your health, but regular drinking can make you ill in a much more diverse range of ways. In addition to the cardiometabolic risks that both drinking and being overweight pose, drinking also poses additional risks:

• Dehydration
• Heightened cancer risk
• Liver and kidney damage
• Poor sleep
• Impact on mental health
• Impact on work
• Impact on your brain and CNS (heightened risk of dementia)
• Damage to relationships (this is a biggie)
• Cost
• Risk of associated addictions and an "on ramp" to more serious drugs

The relationships and mental health ones are particularly invidious. Being overweight tends not to make people grossly selfish, tone deaf and annoying. Having been married to a heavy drinker, I wouldn't put my worst enemy through it.

I think potentially the booze is worse, assuming it's downing half a bottle of wine every single day versus drinking moderately while eating basically healthy food in quantities that mean you go above your ideal weight; eg if you ate a lot of olive oil on your superfood salad and loads of unsalted nuts, and some of your 'excess' weight was muscle rather than fat. But it's better to be a healthy weight and drink in moderation.

I love wine too but it doesn't love me any more! Once I hit peri menopause, my tolerance to it dropped and now it mainly just makes me sleepy, two glasses and I am nodding off!

Doesn't everyone drink every day on holiday? I do and then detox for a week or two when I get home. I thought it was what everyone did! But this is MN so I imagine a lot of people on here stick to water and go for runs instead of hitting the bars.

Along with heart disease, diabetes, a fatty liver all of which can kill as well!

Does this include people who exercise often (4-5 days a week)?

My DH seems to think his workouts cancels out his daily night drinking and thinks it depends on the type of alcohol. He says his doctor says he’s fine, but no idea if DH has been honest about his consumption.

The only thing that can truly tell you if something is unhealthy is your body when it’s decides to get ill due to unhealthy practices.
Drinking half a bottle of wine a day is a habit/lack of discipline that will increase your weight, affect your mental health and daily readiness, plus other things.
being two stone over weight also indicates a habit/lack of discipline that will increase your weight, increase risk of diabetes, affe t your daily health and readiness, plus other things.
On top our genetics also mean that one body will deal with these things better than another.
i think that anyone who is concerned about what’s healthy, and wants to try to stay ahead of ill health needs to knock both on the head and learn healthier habits. There’s no need to do either of the things - drink so much wine or be so overweight. Also doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy alcohol or food. Just a reset is required.

I think the half bottle of wine is probably the lesser of the two evils, so long as if was only half a bottle and not a whole bottle or even two bottles now and again. But you'd put on weight anyway if you had this every night (unless you cut out calories somewhere else, which wouldn't be a healthy thing to do).

I would say the extra weight is healthier. It can be more or less significant depending on height etc. Also it could be 2 stone of muscle or 2 stone at around internal oragns which are two very different things. Also doesn't indicate their diet is bad, if you're not getting heavier then you're using what you're eating calorie wise.

The wine is twice the recommended intake (ish I think?!) and not giving the body any alcohol free days to recover.

No, it's not necessarily an addiction, could be just a bad habit.

I am a healthy weight, bmi is about 24, eat good food, always cooked from scratch apart from the odd meal out and a take away about once a month. I love wine! But I make myself have 3 clear days a week to give my liver the rest. On the other nights I probably drink half a bottle of wine. It’s still over the recommended amount of 14 units so it’s still a bit risky and if I’m on holiday I probably have a drink every day. I am much more aware of units and having clean days than I used to be and I like the days I don’t drink as it proves I don’t ‘need’ it every day. I think everything in moderation really but I also really try to keep to a healthy bmi and drinking less definitely helps with that.

It depends on what risks you are trying to avoid.

Re weight you can be a tall elite athlete with a high muscle percentage and be “overweight” /“obese” with a skewed BMI or a sedentary person who is under 5’2” and with 2stone excess weight putting you firmly in the obese level.

But if you are average height the main risk is cancer, and particularly breast cancer. Both excess weight and alcohol use significantly increases your risk.

But it’s actually age that is your biggest risk of chronic disease. Cells have a finite age and ability to divide producing healthy new cells. Mistakes start to happen as you age increasing the risk of mutation and ultimately we just run out of healthy cells when they can no longer regenerate in organs necessary to support life. Mostly this is genetically determined but can be accelerated by environment ie alcohol use, smoking, drugs, UPF.

BMI includes height so it doesn't matter how tall you are.

Yes it does. Two stone overweight on a person of 5 ft is a lot, not so much if you're 6 ft 2.

Sounds like you are trying to justify and normalise your consumption....

As a liver doctor, 2-3 glasses of wine a night is a massive problem and you’ll be seeing health consequences far sooner than you might believe. 2 stone overweight, whilst sub-optimal, if you’re otherwise active and your diet is not really processed would be far more preferable.

2-3 glasses of wine a night is not normal. Daily drinking is not normal or healthy. People are very desensitised to how much alcohol they’re consuming. For reference the U.K. advice is 14 units a week. Half a bottle of wine is 5 units a day, 35 units a week, more than double the safe levels. And those 14 units should be spread across the week with at least 3 drink free days.

Alcohol will kill you far faster than excess weight. And death from liver failure is a pretty horrific way to go.

Not really.

Exactly!

I remember giving up wine during the week about 15-20 years ago. I lost half a stone in 6 weeks!

Constantly drinking that much will knacker your liver.

Are you arguing the toss with someone op?

"well your overweight"
"well you drink too much"

Personally I would say the alcohol is the most unhealthy.

I have done both- been two stone overweight and got into drinking wine every day at one point. The wine every day made me feel ill in the short term so I knocked it on the head. I was very healthy and fit while being two stone overweight, but decided to lose weight anyway.

i would say two stone overweight is less harmful. I’m two stone overweight. All my things such as blood pressure and blood glucose, liver enzymes are good because I’m active. I would think that amount of alcohol would do some damage to your organs over time.

I think this is probably spot on.

ETA though while I agree with this post, it has made me think of pie and chips. 🤨Haven’t had that for years ( lockdown grocery shop I think?) and this post suddenly made it sound irresistible…

It sounds like you are comparing alcoholism to being overweight. I think in your example the wine is worse. If someone were morbidly obese then both are equally bad.

I think drinking the bottle a day is worse and I say this as someone who isn't overweight

I am not over weight, I eat very healthily and exercise everyday. I do however drink wine everyday (I do have a problem, yes.)
I feel that the healthy living aspects do some level of damage control against the wine.
Doesn't answer your question - sorry.

Being fat has issues. Being an alcoholic has issues. Being both is worse!

Two stone really isn't tons of excess weight to the point where it will cause you health problems.

The risk of half a bottle of wine a night is greater imo. It can affect your cognition overtime. It will affect sleep quality. Wine obviously has calories too lol. Half a bottle a day is a lot per week!!! Tbh, I think you are bordering on having a drink problem if you drink that much everyday.

Unfortunately drinking half a bottle everyday is normalised and see as an acceptable middle class pursuit to relax in an evening, whereas being overweight is equated to laziness.

On a personal level, I'm currently slightly overweight, but eat a balanced diet with healthy meals and walk loads. I feel great. The weight is from constant breastfeeding hunger and snacks 🙈 I was slim at uni, but drank daily, and my skin was worse, I was depressed, and so on. I felt far worse from the drink that some excess weight.