With young people in the UK far more likely to drink than those in other countries, and adult overconsumption treated as a joke, it’s clear: we are a nation in denial
Britain has a problem, and that problem is alcohol. Except, it is more nuanced than that. The issue is less the alcohol itself and more our attitude towards it and the problematic culture we’ve created around it. For far too many of us, it’s all a bit of a laugh.
But it has all become a lot less funny since the publication last week of a major new report by the World Health Organization which shows that Great Britain has the world’s worst rate of child alcohol consumption. It makes for sobering reading. A third of our 11-year-olds have drunk alcohol. More than half of 13-year-olds in England have already started on the booze. Britain comes off worst of the 44 countries covered in the study, the largest of its kind. It’s alarming.
Gary Nunn is an author and journalist
