Do You Love The Sesh? Blame It All On Your Mum And Dad

Parents who give their under-age teenage children booze in the hope of it teaching them how to drink safely and protect them from becoming heavy drinkers are doing more harm than a good, a study has found.

I think, growing up, we all had one mate whose parents would let them drink, despite them being underage, in hopes to teach them a healthy attitude towards booze, but this new study from Australia has found that teens given alcohol from their parents are more likely to then get it elsewhere.

Professor Richard Mattick, who is a drug and alcohol expert from the University of New South Wales, said: "Our study is the first to analyse parental supply of alcohol and its effects in detail in the long term, and finds that it is, in fact, associated with risks when compared to teenagers not given alcohol."

Adding that his study 'reinforces the fact that alcohol consumption leads to harm, no matter how it is supplied'. My mum, who never let me drink until I was 18, is going to be bloody loving this.

The study followed almost 2,000 Australian teens - from 12 to 18 - over a six-year period. During the six-year periods, it was found that as the teens got older the percentage of teenagers given alcohol by their folks rose from 15 percent to 57; whereas the percentage with no access to alcohol dropped from 81 to 21 percent.

By the end of the six years, 81 percent of the teens who got booze from their parents and other places admitted to binge drinking. This was in comparison to 62 percent who only got alcohol from other places and 25 percent who only got alcohol from their parents.

The study, published in The Lancet Public Health, also found similar results for alcohol-related harm and alcohol abuse.

The team also found that teens who were given alcohol by their parents were twice as likely to get it elsewhere the next year.

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Mattick said: "Parents, policy makers, and clinicians need to be made aware that parental provision of alcohol is associated with risk, not with protection, to reduce the extent of parental supply in high-income countries, and in low-middle-income countries that are increasingly embracing the consumption of alcohol."

Source: The Lancet Public Health

Featured Image Credit: PA

Topics: World News, Alcohol

Claire Reid

Claire is a journalist at LADbible who, after dossing around for a few years, went to Liverpool John Moores University. She graduated with a degree in Journalism and a whole load of debt. When not writing words in exchange for money she is usually at home watching serial killer documentaries surrounded by cats. You can contact Claire at [email protected]

@ClaireReid19