A study in JAMA says young women, age 18 to 25, are binge drinking slightly more than men the same age. The good news: Drinking is down for both young men and women compared to earlier generations.
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Young women are binge drinking more than men their age. NPR’s Katia Riddle tells us about a new study that looked at patterns of alcohol consumption among different age groups.
KATIA RIDDLE, BYLINE: One thing that’s become clear from this and other studies about alcohol and drug use – members of Gen Z do not drink the way their parents do. Bryant Shuey is a professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. He worked on this study.
BRYANT SHUEY: Young people, so both teenagers as well as young adults, are continuing to drink less alcohol over time and binge drink less alcohol over time.
RIDDLE: But if you look at the group of young people who do engage in binge drinking, more of them are women. That’s also a new trend.
SHUEY: Gap in rates of both binge drinking – so five or more drinks in a sitting for males and four or more drinks in a sitting for females – narrowed. It significantly narrowed.
RIDDLE: And in these latest numbers, not only have women narrowed the gap – they’ve surpassed men, binge drinking slightly more than men. Johannes Thrul studies addiction at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. He was not involved in this study.
JOHANNES THRUL: So the gender gap in binge drinking is closing, and not in a good way.
RIDDLE: Thrul says women have to think about drinking differently than men do.
THRUL: The female body can’t absorb alcohol in the same way as the male body. And so the risks there of negative consequences are amplified.
RIDDLE: As to the question of why, overall, young people are drinking less, he says there’s a lot of theories, many to do with culture changes.
THRUL: Drinking is not as commonly accepted as, like, a part of – normative part of development as adolescents and young adults anymore as it used to be.
RIDDLE: Another possibility – it’s COVID’s fault. Less socializing meant less drinking.
THRUL: Collectively, we all went through this adjustment in a lot of the ways that we socialize, and that hit young people particularly hard.
RIDDLE: Drinking habits that are established early on, says Thrul, can be predictive of lifelong patterns.
Katia Riddle, NPR News.
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