Some people will make the claim that alcohol is treated "just like fat" in the body, and that this is why people have beer bellies. While at the same time studies show that people with high-alcohol diets and low carb intake actually weigh less than their non-drinking counterparts. The metabolism of alcohol is quite complex, so it becomes silly to make over-generalizations like "alcohol metabolizes to fat" (ex. http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/images/642alcoholmeta...). I think a lot of people end up taking this as gospel, such as the people who parrot that "alcohol kills braincells." Well yes it does, but not much more than will die naturally or due to other causes, more studies have shown. The real danger lies in permanently damaging or killing your liver from which there is no coming back.

When I see television pieces done telling me there is a single simple culprit for a huge problem like obesity, my brain tells me that this is probably not the case. In fact, most of the people I know who are obese don't seem to be eating handfulls of cupcakes or sodas. They're eating chicken wings and burgers and fries and nachos and big macs. Not to say fat is another single cause of obesity, but it's clear that an overabundance of fat, or perhaps simply just over-eating, is another simple cause for obesity which needs to be weighed with all the rest.

Technically just drinking alcohol could lead to diabetes as it lowers the blood sugar and insulin swoops in to fill the gap. Sure, sugar can be very detrimental to your health, but let's not make it out to be the devil. Promoting nutritional balance and moving away from non-fresh foods would probably go a lot farther towards preventing diabetes than never eating sugar.