A record low number of Americans are drinking, according to a new Gallup poll released this week. Just 54% of Americans said they consume alcohol at all.
Gallup has been tracking Americans’ drinking behavior since 1939, and their views of the health implications of drinking since 2001. For the first time, a majority of Americans – 53% – said that moderate drinking, defined as one or two drinks per day, is bad for your health.
That’s because people don’t understand statistics, or willfully misunderstand them.
French people are less likely to die from heart failure (than, say, Americans).
French people are more likely to drink red wine (than, say, Americans).
Therefore drinking red wine reduces the risk of heart failure.
Therefore drinking red wine is healthy.
It’s not even that specifically, at least in my family they latched onto the “resveratrol has health benefits” study, and expanded that to “red wine is healthy”
Like oh yeah cookies are healthy now because eggs have choline. So dumb.