Drinks all round for Nanny in Chief and her family!
SHE’S spearheading the biggest shake up of alcohol guidelines for 30 years, and says she factors in the risk of developing breast cancer every time she considers having a glass of wine.
So you’d be forgiven for thinking that drinking plays a limited role in the lives of Dame Sally Davies and her family.
But pictures posted on social media show that England’s Chief Medical Officer and her daughters enjoy the odd drink just as much as the rest of us.
In one 24-year-old Olivia smiles as she raises an Aperol Spritz cocktail, complete with the caption ‘I bin drinkin I bin drinkin’ – a reference to the Beyonce song Drunk in Love.
Another shows Isa, 20, who is following in her mother’s footsteps at medical school, grinning as she clutches two bottles of wine.
Others see so-called ‘nanny in chief’ Dame
‘Do I want wine or to raise my risk of cancer?’
Sally herself appearing to indulge in a glass of champagne, and sitting at a table topped with beers and wine glasses with Isa and her husband Willem Ouwehand, 62.
Under strict new guidelines published last month, Dame Sally, 66, lowered the recommended maximum weekly intake for men from 21 to 14 units – the same as for women – and urged drinkers to go several days in a row without alcohol.
And she warned there is in fact no safe level of drinking booze, after research revealed that one glass of wine a day can increase a woman’s risk of breast cancer by 13 per cent.
Speaking to MPs earlier this week, the £215,000-a-year civil servant said: ‘I would like people to take their choice knowing the issues and do as I do when I reach for my glass of wine and think, “Do I want my glass of wine or do I want to raise my risk of breast cancer?” I take a decision each time I have a glass.’
Last month Dame Sally admitted she ‘likes a glass of wine’ but said that at the end of a long week we should be drinking something else, such as a cup of tea.