Industry sticks with its vice precedents
These articles are based on responses to questions in the Lifestyle Survey 1999. Questionnaires were inserted in the 15 July edition of Caterer & Hotelkeeper. Readers completed and returned 1,318 questionnaires.
The survey was conducted for Reed Business Research by NSM Research.
Seven out of 10 people in hospitality say they do not smoke. Of those who do, average consumption is 17 cigarettes a day, exactly the same as in 1994. This is very close to the average consumption among the adult population as a whole.
Research quoted in the 1998 White Paper Smoking Kills says 72% of the adult population are non-smokers. The General Household Survey published in October 1999 reports that the average adult smoker gets through 14 cigarettes a day.
One person in eight does not drink alcohol, and 25% say they consume between one and five units of alcohol a week. (A unit is the equivalent of half a pint of beer or a small measure of spirit.)
Average alcohol consumption is 15 units, slightly up from 14 units in 1994.
If it is right to assume that most people tend to underestimate their alcohol consumption, there is worrying news at the top of this table. Only 1% of our sample admit to drinking 61 to 80 units of alcohol a week and a further 1% say they drink even more than that.
