Teenage Binge Drinkers

On the back of figures suggesting that 11 to 13-year-olds are drinking increasing amounts of alcohol, the charity Alcohol Concern last week called for parents who give alcohol to children aged under 15 to be prosecuted.

Thanks to researchers at the Liverpool John Moores University's public health centre, who carried out a survey of more than 10,000 children in over 130 schools in the north-west of England, we now have the evidence ... confirming that this is precisely the wrong approach to adopt if we want to tackle the problem of alcohol-related health and social problems amongst teenagers.

The results indicate that the teenagers most likely to drink regularly, to excess, and in public are girls from the most socially deprived areas who receive the most weekly pocket money. In contrast, those who drink alcohol with their parents, are members of youth groups, and receive less than £10 pocket money a week are less likely to binge drink. Quite clearly we have something to learn from the continental lifestyle, where people are introduced to small amounts of alcohol at family mealtimes while they are still young.