Life Skills Education

Posts Tagged ‘Alcohol’

Children as young as 11 are drinking two bottles of wine a week – more than the recommended limit for an adult woman – official figures reveal.

By Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor

Children in the north of the country drink and smoke more than those in the south, data from the NHS Information Centre has found.

In particular, girls aged between 11 and 15 in the Midlands and the North are drinking more than the recommended limits for adult women.

They are consuming around a bottle and a half of wine a week.

Adult women are advised not to drink more than two to three units a day (or up to 14 units a week) and men not more than three to four (or up to 21 units a week) with two alcohol free days a week.

Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer, said last year that parents should not let their children drink alcohol at all.

More than one in four girls in the North East had a drink in the past week and on average consumed 15.5 units. Girls in the East Midlands, North West and Yorkshire and Humber drank similar amounts.

The pattern was less clear for boys but in general those in the Midlands and the North were more likely to have drunk in the last week than those in the south and to have consumed more.

More than one in four boys in the North East had a drink in the last week and on average drank 20.2 units, the equivalent of eight and a half pints of strong lager or more than two bottles of wine.

Boys and girls in London were the least likely to drink and average consumption of those who did was also lower.

The data, based on surveys of over 23,000 children in England, showed boys drank more than girls in almost all regions.

It is the first time that alcohol consumption for children aged 11 to 15 has been calculated by region.

Previous studies have shown that fewer children are drinking alcohol but those who do consume large amounts.

On smoking children in the north of the country were more likely to have smoked a cigarette in the last year than those in the south and were more likely to smoke regularly.

Children in all of the regions were less likely to have tried drugs than cigarettes or alcohol.

A fifth of 11 to 15 year olds in the North West had taken drugs in the last year compared with around one in seven in the South West.

One in eight children in the North West said they had taken cannabis in the last year compared with one in 12 in the North East.

Tim Straughan, Chief executive of The NHS Information Centre, said: “The report shows there are significant regional differences in the percentages of young people who smoke, drink or use drugs.

“It is interesting to note that London has such comparatively low levels of drink, drug and alcohol use among its 11 to 15-year-olds.

“In contrast, youngsters in the North East are more likely than their peers anywhere else in the country to smoke and drink alcohol. However, they are the least likely to take cannabis.”

Don Shenker, Chief Executive of Alcohol Concern, said: “Today’s figures are very worrying. We’ve seeing a slight decline in the number of children who drink, but those who do drink are drinking much more.

“Too many young people are now drinking at or above safe adult levels, yet their bodies are less able to cope with the harm alcohol can cause.

“We’ve already seen an almost one thousand per cent increase in liver cirrhosis deaths in the 25-44 age group. This is impacting our health services and the lives of families across the UK.”

He said the government must heed advice and opt for minimum pricing of alcohol which would mean it could not be bought at pocket money prices.

Professor Ian Gilmore, President of the Royal College of Physicians and Chairman of the UK Alcohol Health Alliance said: “These figures indicate that for many young teenagers drinking has moved beyond experimentation and into far more dangerous territory.

“Regular consumption at these levels, especially when compressed into heavy sessions at the weekend puts boys and girls at considerable risk.

“At this age the adolescent mind is still developing, and for an unlucky minority heavy drinking so early will have profound and long lasting implications for their learning and problem solving skills. Tougher penalties for those found to be selling alcohol to youngsters are welcome, but parents and families also have a responsibility to help their offspring make healthy choices.”

Children’s Minister Dawn Primarolo said: “I am pleased that these statistics show a decline in the number of young people smoking, drinking alcohol and taking drugs.

“The Government has been committed to providing young people with the right advice and support they need to make safe and sensible decisions. Importantly we have given parents, carers and schools additional guidance and expert advice so that young people can turn to a trusted adult to discuss their concerns about smoking, drinking and drugs.”

Article taken from

 Education programs and intervention efforts aimed at teenagers often seek to eliminate immediate consequences by helping them make responsible choices about alcohol and drugs. One of the many areas requiring attention is keeping kids from immediate dangers, such as driving while intoxicated.

As teens are educated, however, it is also critical for those designing programs to understand how early drinking decisions affect young people in later life. Recently a study by Hingson, Heeren and Edwards explored these ongoing effects.

The researchers looked at people who had ever consumed alcohol to see whether an early age at the time of drinking onset and dependence then predicted drug use and dependence.

The study also looked at whether driving decisions were affected. The researchers wanted to explore whether drinkers who have used drugs have predictable patterns in behaviors relating to driving under the influence of drugs and motor-vehicle crash involvement because of drugs.

The study employed a United States national sample of 42,867 persons aged 18 and older. The participants were surveyed in 1991 to 1992. The researchers used logistic regression analysis to examine the associations between those who had ever consumed alcohol. There were numerous controls used for demographics and personal characteristics.

The results of the study showed that among participants that had ever consumed alcohol, 22 percent used drugs, 10 percent had driven under the influence of drugs, and nearly 1 percent had been in a motor-vehicle crash because of drug use, which is the equivalent of one million people.

The younger the age of the respondents when they began to drink and whether they had experienced alcohol dependence were associated with greater odds of having used drugs and experiencing drug dependence.

For those who had used both alcohol and drugs, having experienced drug dependence was the most significant predictor of driving under the influence of drugs and involvement in an automobile accident because of drug use.

The study has several implications for education and intervention programs. Programs to reduce drug-related automobile accidents needs to incorporate drug use prevention and treatment. There should also be attention given to prevention of early alcohol use and treatment for alcohol dependence.

The study provides important information for those educating and preventing alcohol and drug use and dependence. An early introduction to alcohol and drug use can have long-term effects in predicting other behaviors relating to alcohol and drugs.

Article taken from Drug Addiction Treatment

Parents should not give children alcohol in the hope that it will breed a responsible attitude to drinking, Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, has warned.

By Kate Devlin, Medical Correspondent

Exposure to alcohol at a young age is actually more likely to make them heavy or binge drinkers, he said.

Parents with a “laissez-faire” attitude to their teenager’s drinking are also putting their offspring at risk, he warned, as he called for a culture shift from the image of the drinker as a hero.

Sir Liam made his comments as he launched new guidelines on children’s drinking for parents, in which he called for youngsters to have an alcohol-free childhood.

Children under the age of 15 should not drink any alcohol at all, the report advises.

Older teenagers between 15 and 17 should be supervised by their parents if they are drinking, and should limit alcohol intake to one day a week.

Parents can set an good example by drink any alcohol at home only in a “positive” setting, such as a family meal, according to the guidelines.

Sir Liam said that the notion that introducing children to small amounts of alcohol at a young age would teach them to drink responsibly had become a “middle class obsession” in recent years.

“(That) if you somehow wean children on to alcohol at an early age they won’t have any problems in later life, (that) they will be sensible – is not supported by evidence,” he said.

“It’s a bit of a middle-class obsession – the idea of taking out the wine bottle and diluting it.

“There’s not a great problem to that as such but to extrapolate from that sort of situation that alcohol in general is a good thing just does not work.”

He added: “Alcohol has a ruinous effect on the foundations of adult life.

“We see the tyranny of alcohol on our towns and city centres.

“Too often childhood is robbed of its clear-eyed innocence and replaced with the befuddled futility that comes with the consumption of dirt cheap alcohol.”

Evidence shows that children who are introduced to alcohol at a young age are more likely to binge drink as teenagers and to develop alcohol-related problems in later life.

Official figures show that half a million 11 to 15 year olds in England admit they have been drunk in the last month.

And every year around 7,600 11 to 17-year-olds are admitted to hospital because of alcohol.

Sir Liam warned that there was evidence that alcohol harmed children’s’ developing brains.

Drinking can lead to depression, subtle brain damage, long-term memory problems, difficulty remembering words and mental health problems, he said.

Physical problems include damage to the liver, reduced levels of growth hormones and a lower bone density in boys.

In recent years doctors have warned that a binge-drinking culture is leading to young women in their twenties being diagnosed with alcohol-related conditions such as cirrhosis of the liver, unheard of a decade ago.

Sir Liam insisted that his report was merely advice and that there were no plans to change the law.

At the moment parents are legally allowed to give children alcohol in their own home from the age of five…

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