Gender Differences and Body Water

As discussed above in the section on Body Weight and Body Type different body types have different body water percentages. Generally speaking, women tend to have a higher percentage of body fat and thus a lower percentage of body water. Therefore, in general, if a man and a woman of the same weight were to consume the same amount of alcohol the woman would be expected to reach a higher peak blood alcohol concentration. However, as discussed above, if the woman was extremely fit and had a lower than average percentage of body fat and the man had a higher than average percentage of body fat, this would not necessarily be true. Furthermore, total body water tends to decrease with age, so an older person will also be more affected by the same amount of alcohol. According to the table below the differences in alcohol concentration due to average body composition differences based on gender would be between 16% and 10% depending on age.

Average Total Body Water
as a function of Sex and Age

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