Dangers of unsupervised youth drinking

More evidence of the importance of parental awareness and supervision of their children’s alcohol consumption, and of the dangers of unsupervised youth drinking, has been provided by a major new study by a research team led by Professor Mark Bellis at the Centre for Public Health in Liverpool.

The study of just under 10,000 15- and 16-year olds in the north west of England, a region with particularly high levels of alcohol consumption and harm, found that likelihood of binge drinking and also of harm from drinking was substantially higher in children who drank outside the family environment in parks, streets or other public places compared with those whose access to alcohol was through their parents.

The findings were widely misreported in the media, notably the BBC, as showing that parents should provide their teenage children with a weekly allowance of alcohol. However, lead author Mark Bellis refuted this, pointing out that the report contained no such recommendation. He said that one of the most striking findings of the study was that adverse effects of drinking were common even in children who drank relatively small amounts in the family home. Bellis said:

“Regretted sex after drinking, having been involved in violence when drunk, consuming alcohol in public places and forgetting things after drinking had all been experienced by relatively large proportions of teen drinkers. For children who drink alcohol we did not find any typical drinking patterns where children were at no risk of harms. Accessing alcohol through parents did not remove the risks of alcohol related harms but was associated with lower levels of risk”. While 19.9% of teen drinkers whose parents provide alcohol and who drink once a week had been involved in violence when drunk, this rose to 35.9% in those who only access alcohol through other means.

Another notable finding of the study was that problems from youth drinking are strongly associated with the types of alcohol consumed. Those who consumed multi-litre value cider bottles, spirits and other cheap forms of alcohol reported higher frequency of violence when drunk, and alcohol-related sexual encounters that they later regretted compared with those who had consumed other products. Interestingly, alcopops were not associated with higher levels of adverse effects. Bellis concluded: “The negative impacts of alcohol on children’s health are substantial. Those parents who choose to allow children aged 15-16 years to drink may limit harms by restricting consumption to lower frequencies (e.g. no more than once a week) and under no circumstances permitting binge drinking. However, parental efforts should be matched by genuine legislative and enforcement activity to reduce independent access to alcohol by children and to increase the price of cheap alcohol products”.