Does Beer Truly Cause Pot Belly? Is It Just A Myth

Is it true that beer causes pot belly in men or beer drinkers in general? Is it just another myth? Well, let me tell you that beer is implicated in the development of pot belly; but can we blame beer alone for this? No, I don’t think so. Now that we know that consumption of beer contributes to a beer belly, as some would call it, let me tell you how it happens and maybe you can know how to prevent, minimize or get rid of that pot belly.

Here is how beer causes your pot belly

1. There are calories in beer and these ultimately are stored as fat. This is not peculiar to the calories in beer but any calories that you may consume from any source – including foods. It is however so sad for this guy call “Beer” that it seems to be the scape goat every time someone that has a pot belly evaluates his belly. But this is not so far from the truth because it is very easy to overtake the calories in beer. I know guys that take 8-10 bottles in one night.


Photo Credit: dreamstime.com

If we consider the fact that a typical beer has 140-150 calories in it, downing ten in one night contributes about 1500 calories to your body. Since in a lot of men, fats are easy to store around the mid-region of the body, the belly starts protruding.

Let me just make this clear before I muddle everything up. You may have noticed that I talk about eating carbohydrate and get fat stored in your body. That’s how it works. When you take in more calories than you burn, the excess calories are stored as fat.

2. When we drink beer, we usually do not drink alone, we eat suya (which also has its own dangers), beef, chicken wings, pork, Pizza and foods that have contents with high calorific values. This act alone adds more calories to our body but we blame only beer and forget these accomplices.

3. Alcohol increases appetite for food, so when we spend long hours taking beer and gisting with friends, we tend to take more of whatever we are eating. This contributes more to our calorie intake. They all end up as fat in our body.

4. Finally, it has been established that “In general, alcohol intake is associated with bigger waists, because when you drink alcohol, the liver burns alcohol instead of fat.” This is according to Michael Jensen, MD, an endocrine expert and obesity researcher with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

You may be wondering that there are beer drinkers that do not have pot bellies. Yes, there are so many of them that I know too. This is because  The part of your body where this fat is stored is dependent on several factors such as age, sex, and hormones. As we get older, our metabolic activities may drop which in turn affect how much we burn the calories that we take in.

Pot belly is linked to a variety of health problems such as type II diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. Therefore, we have to find a way to prevent or get rid of pot belly (if we already have it).

By Ahmed Ogundimu on 1 May, 2015 · Posted in Food & Body