UK binge drinking shows no signs of drying up, says ONS survey

More than 2.5m drink more in a day than their weekly limit

Source: FT

by: Max Seddon

March 8, 2016

Britain’s fondness for binge drinking shows no sign of abating, with more than 2.5m people drinking more in one day than the 14 units recommended per week.

Young drinkers lead the way, with 17 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds exceeding the limit, equivalent to six pints of 4% alcohol beer. A further 45 per cent of all drinkers exceeded a third of the limit – two pints of beer or two glasses of wine – on their heaviest drinking day of the week.

The data were compiled by the Office of National Statistics in a survey that found 58 per cent of Britons admitted to drinking in the past week.

Less than half of young people reported drinking at all in the past week, compared with 66 per cent of those aged 45 to 64.

That may be because they are struggling to afford it. People with incomes over £40,000 a year were more than twice as likely to drink five times or more a week than those earning less than £10,000.

Disparities among genders are likely to play a part: women were less likely to drink overall, but made up 67 per cent of drinkers in the lowest income group, whereas men made up 77 per cent of the high-earning drinkers. Young people, who drink less as a whole, are also under-represented in the higher-income brackets.

Drinkers’ frequency also affected their choice of tipple. Heavy drinkers favoured six or more pints down the pub (or cans of Zywiec on the street), whereas the more restrained were fonder of wine, making it the most popular drink overall.

The popularity of wine in the UK is in part due to its status as the world’s largest export market for champagne, which it has held since 1996. Imports to Britain went up 4.5 per cent year on year, according to the Champagne Bureau in separate statistics released on Tuesday, three times the global growth rate.

The Bacardi Breezer, however, looks to be well on its way out, with less than 1 per cent of respondents saying they drank alcopops.

Britain’s ethnic diversity may begin to snap the trend. London was the only area where more than a quarter of respondents said they were teetotal – a result probably due to its high population of Asian and Asian British people, 70 per cent of whom do not drink.

The capital also had the lowest rate of people reporting drinking in the past week – 51 per cent, against 62 per cent in both the south-west and south-east of England. Wales and Scotland led the way in drinking over the weekly limit in a day, with 14 and 13 per cent respectively.

The charity Alcohol Concern reiterated its call for mandatory health warnings in response to the ONS data.

“Alcohol continues to be the leading risk factor for deaths among both men and women aged 15 to 49 and is linked to over 60 medical conditions including cancer, diabetes and high blood pressure,” said Jackie Ballard, Alcohol Concern’s chief executive. “When it comes to alcohol, there are no safe limits of consumption.”