United Kingdom: One in three people aged 16-24 now ‘never drink alcohol’ and those who do drink less, UCL study finds

Young people are shunning alcohol with one third going teetotal, a study found

More people in England are never taking up drinking at all, researchers revealed

University College London found that staying sober was becoming ‘mainstream’

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/

By COLIN FERNANDEZ

9 October 2018

Young people are increasingly shunning alcohol, with nearly one in three not touching a drop, a study has found.

Researchers found young people in England aren’t just drinking less alcohol, more of them are never taking up drinking at all.

The trend is so widespread that being teetotal is gaining wider social acceptance to the extent it is becoming ‘mainstream’, according to University College London researchers.

The UCL team examined data on 9,699 people aged 16 to 24 collected as part of the Health Survey for England 2005-2015, an annual, nationally representative survey looking at changes in the health and lifestyles of people across England.

They analysed the proportion of non-drinkers among social demographic and health sub-groups, along with alcohol units consumed by those that did drink and the levels of binge drinking.

Analysis of figures found that the proportion of 16 to 24-year-olds who don’t drink alcohol increased from 18 per cent in 2005 to 29 per cent in 2015.

They found the trend to be largely due to an increasing number of people who had never been drinkers, up from just one in 11 (9 per cent) in 2005 to one in six (17 per cent) in 2015.