The staggering variances in alcohol guidelines acrosh the world

By The Data Team

THE dangers of drinking too much are well known. But how much is too much? To find out, Agnieszka Kalinowski and Keith Humphreys of Stanford University in California scoured the globe for countries whose governments have defined the size of a “standard drink” or set guidelines for low-risk consumption. They found there isn’t a whole lot of agreement. Among the 37 nations polled, the size of a standard drink varies by 250%, the team reports in the scientific journal Addiction. Britain and Iceland, for instance, have a typical tipple defined as just 8 grams of alcohol, while for Austrians the standard is set at a dizzying 20 grams. In some places, such as Switzerland, the recommendations are vague, with a standard drink estimated to be somewhere between 10 and 12 grams. Luxembourg, on the other hand, pins it precisely at 12.8 grams.

Only a few countries think that safe alcohol intakes are the same for males and females, but even among them there is no consensus on what they are. No matter. Of those who think male and female consumption should differ, almost no one seems to agree either. A temperate French female, for instance, is allowed twice the alcohol per day of a Swedish lady, and a Kiwi male can consume half again as much. Men in Britain and Switzerland are allowed a tad more without a wagging finger, and American males can order the equivalent of about four beers a day (American beers, mind you.) But confusion over a country’s safe quota is only part of the problem. Who drinks alcohol by the gram? Americans don’t even use metric measures and the British insist on keeping alive the imperial pint. Throw in concepts like “proof”, “percent alcohol” and “units”, and it is hard to justify chastising anyone who overindulges despite the best of intentions. The authors are sober in their conclusions: “It seems unlikely that everyone is correct.”

READ MORE: The changing geography of alcoholic drinks