Blame The Buggers with Jobs

I have come to the conclusion that being retired is bad for your health and its not the retired persons fault, its those inconsiderate bastards with jobs. You see for years now governments and medical types have been telling us of the perils of drinking and eating to excess.

Obesity is becoming a big thing; worldwide the number of obese people has doubled since 1980 and 60% of the people pushing the breaking points of chairs to the limit are women. Now to become obese you have to eat a lot and by the looks of things you have to eat a lot 24/7 and ensure that the only activity you do is lie in a bed or on a sofa and watch TV.

Drinking is also a problem, not only is the level of drinking increasing it also features is such things as domestic violence, road rage and other substance addictions. But interestingly most obese people do not have a drink problem; I guess getting drunk inhibits their ability to constantly stuff food down their necks, plus they forget the intricate plots in East Enders and all the other soaps they lie in front of the TV watching. Likewise drunks can’t waste time eating, they will tell you they can get everything they want in life out of a bottle.

Even more shocking is the news that binge drinking and eating can have even more detrimental effect of your health. By eating sensibly and abstaining from drinking during the week and then going crazy on one night, you are doing all sorts of damage to your health as your body struggles to deal with the sudden and massive influx of food or drink. Again it seems the two areas are separated, you will get binge drinkers and binge eaters and almost never get someone who does both.EndFragment

So what has all this got to do with the health of retired people I hear you ask and the answer is shockingly simple, because I have discovered something that governments and medical types have yet to warn us about, but is equally dangerous to our health, binge socialising.

You see, us retired people are in the main in the minority, most of our friends still work and so from Monday to Friday you never hear from them. Then at the weekends when they have no job to go to, suddenly its lift off and the phone rings off the hook with invites. I tell you we can sit around in our house during the week as though we are the last people on earth, then Friday afternoon it starts. Offers to go out for supper flood in, afternoons in bars watching rugby, beach parties, family celebrations and offers of picnics fill your diary. In between all of this we have to try and fit in the odd diner party at our house, which is more difficult than it sounds, as there is only so many available hours in a weekend and lots of socialising to do.

Now what makes social binging the potential killer it could be, is that unlike food and booze bingers who keep the two activities separate, social binging combines the two. So us retired types sit around Monday to Friday taking life easy and then Friday night to Sunday night we are rushing around going from one function to another or shopping, cooking and entertaining at home. We consume large amounts of food and booze at weekends and on top of that we switch from an inactive life to rushing around like headless chickens.

So there you have it social binging is the curse of the retired, but the cure is simple, all those who have a job must stop being so inconsiderate and start having parties and other social events in the week, bugger work the next day, this is peoples health we are talking about.

Until then as a preventative measure I have started to drink a bottle of wine every night and cook and eat fairly large meals, so that the weekends do not come as such a shock to my system.

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