What do they drink?
Beer and lager are the most popular drinks among under 18s, with spirits, wine and alcopops also popular.
Where do they do it?
54% of 11-12 year olds said they drank at home or at someone else's home. 33% of 15 yr-olds drank alcohol in a pub or bar and 26% of 14-yr-olds said they drank at parties with friends.
How much do they drink?
The mean alcohol consumption over the past week of boys aged 11-13 has shot up from 3.6 units in 1992 to 8.6 units in 2006. Girls in same age group now drink a mean of 7.9 units in a week, up from 3.1 in 1992. For boys aged 15 that figure rises to 13.1 units a week, and 10.5 units a week for girls.
Consider Relevant Factors
Causes
✧Peer Pressure: For most young people, the teenage years are a fun and exciting time, filled with first-time experiences: a new school, a part-time job but in this day and age teens are often tempted to try, and abuse, alcohol because of peer pressure. Friends may tell you that it's cool, it's relaxing, and it'll make your Saturday night so much more fun. Until you picture yourself all alone, lurching down the road and throwing up in a gutter - nothing cool, relaxing or fun about that!
✧Media Influences: There are such programmes like Skins, Shameless, 90210 and other programmes with a teenage fan base. Also, magazines often cover different celebrities who drink to excess, with these people being labelled as “cool”, and are therefore role models for a number of teenagers in society today. Adverts on TV also play a major role in influencing teenage drinking, such as WKD, “Let out your Wicked side”. Therefore, in my opinion the media influences alcohol consumed by teenagers significantly.
Effects
✧Health: Almost every system in the body can be negatively affected by alcohol. Alcohol can cause cancer, liver disease, heart attacks and brain damage, as well as the disease alcoholism, which is a dependency on alcohol and an illness in itself. Most illnesses happen later in life after a lot of binge drinking, however people who start drinking during their teenage years are more likely to suffer from long term effects from alcohol.
✧Family/Relationships: Drinking during the teenage years can severely damage any family home, especially conflict with the parents of the child. Also, the effects of drinking can influence a relationship, as the person may change with alcohol, possibly even become violent to their partner, resulting in a broken relationship or family home. This can result in being alone your whole life and what will people do when they’re lonely? They’ll drink and eventually they might become alcoholics
Define Task
Aim 1: I am aiming to find out the causes and effects of underage drinking.
Aim 2: I am also aiming to find out if teenagers I know drink and what their attitude is like about drinking but especially underage drinking
Outcome 1: To determine the causes and effects of underage drinking
Outcome 2: To determine if I know of any underage drinkers and what their view is on the subject
Consider Relevant Factors
