"Usually my breakfast and lunch are quite simple, either bread or fast food; after a busy day, I often have a big supper with friends, sometimes as late as midnight," said Jim, a typical young white-collar worker.

Shanghai's booming dining industry gives the best evidence for the phenomenon - there are over 50,000 restaurants scattered across the city and quite a few of them are always crowded with diners.

Table diplomacy

In an era when table diplomacy has become an important element of social communication and business activity, people are often at risk of taking food beyond their bellies' capacity.

The custom of preparing hills of food for a feast can be traced to remote antiquity. People ate and drank all day and all night to celebrate their victories or holidays.

To ease the stomach from the burden of too much food, people in ancient Rome created a method of vomiting up food by tickling the throat with a feather so that they could carry on with the banquet.

In China, with its rich and long gastronomic history, the host is required to prepare excessive quantities of food for guests to show his hospitality.

The Complete Manchu and Han Banquet gathers delicacies in Chinese cuisine, with as many as 108 dishes.

Price tag

Eating and drinking too much is very harmful to one's health, leading to a series of illnesses in the stomach and digestive system.

"The number of such patients increases rapidly during weekends and holidays in the emergency rooms of hospitals because the overeating and drinking have put their digestive system out of sync," said Shi Hong of Zhongshan Hospital.

The digestive system cannot deal with so much food all at one time with limited digestive juice released. Some people experience symptoms like stomach pains, vomiting, abdominal distension and belching. Serious cases involve acute gastritis, enteritis and stomach perforation.

The food blocked in the stomach and intestines will reduce some harmful elements such as amine and hydroxybenzene, which stimulate the intestinal walls and enter into the blood, then flow to heart, brain and spleen and other important organs.

When the stomach and intestines are full of food, they put pressure on other organs such as the liver, gallbladder and pancreas, influencing their normal operation.

Too much food also leads to poor sleep patterns, insomnia and weak nerves. Medical research shows that people have more nightmares after eating excessive amounts of food. Even after the body has fallen to sleep, the stomach and intestines are still working very hard. Such information is transformed to the brain cells and keeps the nervous centralize highly excited, thus degrading the quality of sleep.

Blood vessels bear the brunt

Rich feasts contain a lot of protein, fat and energy, which speed the solidification of the fat in blood. In the long term, it will cause thrombosis, vascular sclerosis and excessive cholesterine accumulation in the blood vessels.

"High blood pressure and cardiovascular diseases are rising among middle-aged people, which is probably due to their unhealthy dining habits," said Dr Shi.

The excessive intake of food also puts a heavy burden on the pancreas and speeds the ageing process, which is a risk factor in diabetes. About 30 percent of pancreatitis is caused by crapulence, and sometimes the disease is fatal.

Elderly people and those with heart conditions are advised to eat appropriate food, because crapulence can trigger heart disease and cause sudden death.

Research shows that the risk of heart disease within an hour of crapulence is ten times higher than usual.

Research carried out by the British Scientific Dining Association reveals that crapulence has bad effects on the memory and makes people slow-witted.

Recall the horrible aftermath when tempted by a whole table of delicious dishes, and always remember the advice of health experts: "Never fill your stomach with too much food. Appropriate food intake will keep you healthy and able to live longer."

( Shanghai Star February 11, 2002)