Teen girls in Britain are some of the heaviest drinkers in Europe, report suggests

Health Reporter(wp/es):

Teenage girls in Britain are among the heaviest drinkers in Europe, World Health Organisation research suggests.

Those aged 15 in Wales were the second only to Denmark in terms of being most likely out of the 36 European nations to have been intoxicated at least twice in their lifetime, according to the statistics from 2014.

In Wales, 33.6 per cent of females that age said they had been under the influence of alcohol two times or more.

Scotland took fourth spot, with 32.9 per cent reporting so and England came in six, with a figure of 30.9 per cent.  

Teenage girls in Britain were also recorded as more likely to drink than boys of their age now as well, The Telegraph reported.

The country with the least prevalence of drinking amongst 15-year-old girls was Israel, at 5.4 per cent.

After issuing the report, which compared drinking habits between 2002 and 2014, Dr Zsuzsanna Jakab, World Health Organisation regional director for Europe, said: “Young people are regular drinkers at an age where they should not be drinking at all.

“As we know that any alcohol consumption at this critical developmental stage in life is especially harmful, policy-makers have a responsibility to implement the measures we know are effective, such as limiting access, enforcing age checks and restricting any type of alcohol marketing, including digital marketing.”

However, despite these figures regarding adolescents still being seen as a concern, the report does show that overall drinking amongst them in Europe has fallen since 2002.

But the research, which has been led by the University of St Andrews, still shows excessive drinking is still common.

Dr Jo Inchley, lead editor of the report, said “Overall reductions in harmful drinking have been greatest in countries that traditionally have had higher prevalence, such as Great Britain and the Nordic region.

“This makes it clear that change is possible; however, more should be done to ensure that adolescents are effectively protected from the harms caused by alcohol”.

In 2014, some 28 per cent of 15-year-olds stated they began to drink at age 13, which was down from 46 per cent who said the same in 2002.

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