Dieting is the practice of eating food in a regulated and supervised fashion to decrease, maintain, or increase body weight. In other words, it is conscious control.How Culture Influences the Way People Drink. Further Reading. Pamphlet prepared for The Wine Institute, San Francisco: CA, July, 1. Stanton Peele, Morristown, NJ Archie Brodsky, Boston, MA. Contents. Introduction. I Alcohol problems are not simply a result of how much people drink. II Enormous differences can be observed as to how different ethnic and cultural groups handle alcohol. III Alcohol use does not lead directly to aggressive behavior. Looking for recipes? On this page we have resources to help you find great recipes: A list of our food posts (also accessible via our Pinterest page). E very diet has rules. If a diet works for you, it’s simply because the rules have had the effect of making you eat less food (nothwithstanding whatever magical. IV There have been major historical variations in drinking patterns in the U. S. V Throughout history, wine and other alcoholic beverages have been a source of pleasure and aesthetic appreciation in many cultures. VI Young people in many cultures are introduced to drinking early in life, as a normal part of daily living. VII Many cultures teach their young to drink moderately and responsibly. VIII A recipe for moderate drinking can be constructed from such successful examples as the Italian, Spanish, French, Greek, Jewish, and Chinese cultures. IX Government control policies are misguided and ineffective in regulating cultural drinking practices. X Researchers have derived important lessons from cross- cultural research on drinking practices. XI Summary: Historical and cross- cultural research point the way to more responsible, healthful, and pleasurable drinking practices today. XII Conclusions. Introduction: Sociologists, anthropologists, historians, and psychologists, in their study of different cultures and historical eras, have noted how malleable people's drinking habits are. If one can't detect the difference between drinking in this setting, or at Jewish or Chinese weddings, or in Greek taverns, and that in Irish working- class bars, or in Portuguese bars in the worn- out industrial towns of New England, or in run- down shacks where Indians and Eskimos gather to get drunk, or in Southern bars where men down shots and beers- -and furthermore, if one can't connect these different drinking settings, styles, and cultures with the repeatedly measured differences in alcoholism rates among these same groups, then I can only think one is blind to the realities of alcoholism. Ways of drinking and of thinking about drinking are learned by individuals within the context in which they learn ways of doing other things and of thinking about them- -that is, whatever else drinking may be, it is an aspect of culture about which patterns of belief and behavior are modeled by a combination of example, exhortation, rewards, punishments, and the many other means, both formal and informal, that societies use for communicating norms, attitudes, and values. Pattison, E. M., and Kaufman, E., eds., Encyclopedic Handbook of Alcoholism, Gardner Press, New York, 1. Potentially, each individual is linked, directly or indirectly, to all members of his or her culture... Pittman, D. J., and White, H. R., eds., Society, Culture, and Drinking Patterns Reexamined, Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies, New Brunswick, NJ, 1. Thus, how we learn to drink and continue to drink is determined most by the drinking we observe, the attitudes about drinking we pick up, and the people we drink with. In this booklet we will explore the relationship between cultural assumptions and educational messages about alcohol and the likelihood that people will drink in ways that are harmful to themselves or others. I Alcohol problems are not simply a result of how much people drink. One popular approach to reducing drinking problems is to reduce the overall amount of alcohol a society consumes. However, it is remarkable how little correspondence there is between the amount of alcohol consumed (per person) in different societies and the problems this alcohol consumption generates. Heath, D. B., ed., International Handbook on Alcohol and Culture, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1. In a comprehensive study of alcohol consumption patterns and outcomes in European and English- speaking countries, none of the 1. Temperance movements (showing a concern with the destructive consequences of drinking) had as high a per capita alcohol consumption as any of the countries without Temperance movements. Table 1). II Enormous differences can be observed as to how different ethnic and cultural groups handle alcohol. On the other hand, in those cultures where alcohol has been but recently introduced and has not become a part of pre- existing institutions, where no prescribed patterns of behavior exist when `under the influence,' where alcohol has been used by a dominant group the better to exploit a subject group, and where controls are new, legal, and prohibitionist, superseding traditional social regulation of an activity which previously has been accepted practice, one finds deviant, unacceptable and asocial behavior, as well as chronic disabling alcoholism. In cultures where ambivalent attitudes toward drinking prevail, the incidence of alcoholism is also high. Blum, R. H., et al., Drugs I: Society and Drugs, Jossey- Bass, San Francisco, 1. A population that drinks daily may have a high rate of cirrhosis and other medical problems but few accidents, fights, homicides, or other violent alcohol- associated traumas; a population with predominantly binge drinking usually shows the opposite complex of drinking problems.. A group that views drinking as a ritually significant act is not likely to develop many alcohol- related problems of any sort, whereas another group, which sees it primarily as a way to escape from stress or to demonstrate one's strength, is at high risk of developing problems with drinking. Pattison, E. M., and Kaufman, E., eds., Encyclopedic Handbook of Alcoholism, Gardner Press, New York, 1. The solitary drinker, so dominant an image in relation to alcohol in the United States, is virtually unknown in other countries. The same is true among tribal and peasant societies everywhere. Heath, D. B., ed., International Handbook on Alcohol and Culture, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1. The Duke of Wellington felt that Napoleon's French army had an advantage over his British troops. Whereas the French soldiers could be allowed to forage freely, the British soldiers, when they encountered alcohol, could be expected to drink to unconsciousness. I remember once at Badajoz,' Wellington recalled at the end of that terrible siege, `entering a cellar and seeing some soldiers so dead drunk that the wine was actually flowing from their mouths! Yet others were coming in not at all disgusted.. Our soldiers could not resist wine.'. Modern epidemiological and sociological research consistently documents these cultural differences. Using DSM- III, an international team led by John Helzer discovered the following remarkable differences in alcohol abuse rates among different cultures, including two native Asian groups: . There is about a fiftyfold difference in lifetime prevalence between these two samples and Shanghai, where the lowest lifetime prevalence of 0. For as long as American epidemiologists have measured drinking problems, they have found clearcut, significant, and persistent group differences. It is notable that the groups with the lowest incidence of alcohol abuse, the Jews and Italians, have (a) the lowest abstinence rates among these groups, and (b) (especially the Italians) the highest consumption rates. Cahalan D., and Room, R., Problem Drinking among American Men, Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies, New Brunswick, NJ, 1. Greeley, A. M., et al., Ethnic Drinking Subcultures, Praeger, New York, 1. Two sociologists searched for Jewish alcohol abusers in an upstate NY city in the belief that alcoholism rates among American Jews had risen. Instead, they found an astoundingly low rate of 0. Glassner, B., and Berg, B., . George Vaillant, studying inner- city ethnic men in Boston over a 4. Irish- Americans were 7 times as likely to develop alcohol dependence as Italian- Americans- -this despite the Irish- Americans having a substantially higher abstinence rate. Vaillant, G. E., The Natural History of Alcoholism, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1. A sociologist who reviewed 1. New York's Chinatown from 1. Barnett, M. L., . Diethelm, O., ed., Etiology of Chronic Alcoholism, Charles C Thomas, Springfield, IL, 1. There are also clear and distinct differences in alcohol abuse rates by socioeconomic status. Higher- SES Americans are more likely to drink, but also more likely to drink without problems, than lower- SES Americans. Again, this suggests that lower abstinence rates and higher consumption levels are not themselves the source of drinking problems. Hilton, M. E., . 8. Drinking patterns in the U. S. The Southern and Mountain regions of the country, with their . These differences in problem rates, however, are apparent only among men.. It has recently been argued that drinking practices and problems in the United States are heading toward a regional convergence.. The evidence given here, however, contradicts the convergence thesis. According to the latest national survey data, the wetter and drier sections of the country continue to have markedly different rates of abstention and per- drinker consumption. Alcoholics Anonymous World Headquarters has compiled AA group membership data in countries around the world. In 1. 99. 1 (the last year for which data were kept), the western country with the fewest AA groups per capita was Portugal, with 0. The highest was Iceland, with almost 8. This is a strong indicator of greater perceived alcohol problems in Iceland- -even though Portugal consumes 2 1/2 times as much alcohol per capita as Iceland! Table 1).) III Alcohol use does not lead directly to aggressive behavior. Drunken aggression is commonly observed in some cultures and settings in the United States. Worldwide, however, such behavior is typically quite rare, even among people who drink a great deal. Numerous anthropological studies demonstrate that alcohol- related violence is a learned behavior, not an inevitable result of alcohol consumption.
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