Kids given sips of wine ‘grow up to binge-drink’
YOUNGSTERS allowed a sip of wine or beer from their parents are more likely to be binge drinkers as adults, research suggests.
This is because they view alcohol more positively than those who are not allowed to drink as children.
Lead researcher Dr Mikela Murphy said: “Letting a child sip alcohol may play a unique role in the development of positive alcohol expectancies, which have known associations with the onset of heavy drinking, problem drinking, and binge drinking in later life.”
Her team’s findings suggested that beer, wine and champagne were the most frequent type of booze sipped by children, and it was usually offered rather than taken surreptitiously.
The authors said: “Parents often provide sips of alcohol to children because they believe that the child will dislike the taste, sipping will diminish the ‘forbidden fruit’ appeal of alcohol and that not allowing a sip will increase the child’s desire to have it.”
The study by the Uniformed Services University, in Maryland, US, looked at the long-term health data of 4,842 people from the age of nine to 11 onwards.
The findings have been published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.