Teen girls drinking more, AMA warns

My advise is that don't drink for your great health, I have research into few cases of teenager's some 30 years ago, today most of these middle age now are full of illness.

Therefore, I urge the teenager's don't drink alcohol.

Teen girls drinking more, AMA warns
Doctors group says alcohol firms attract girls with sweet drinks

By Gayle Worland, Tribune staff reporter. The Associated Press contributed to this report December 17, 2004

Jennifer Werstein, 18, has been to enough parties to know the routine: When guys head out to buy alcohol, they ask the other guests, "What do you want us to bring back?"

"And the major response from the girls is, `Get us some of those chick drinks,'" Werstein said.

On Thursday, the Chicago-based American Medical Association publicly blamed the promotion of such "chick drinks"--sweet, fruity alcoholic beverages the AMA refers to as "alcopops"--for increased drinking by teenage girls.

The AMA released a report that said an Internet poll of 741 teens found that the average age for girls to try their first alcoholic drink is 13. By age 18, 1 in 3 had tried alcopops, the report said.

To change such behavior, the association suggests that the medical community focus on changing the social environment that encourages, even enables, teens to drink.

In the past, "a lot of the effort went to telling youths not to drink and punishing them if they did," said Dr. Richard Yoast, director of the AMA Office of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse. "That effort was only marginally successful."

According to the Internet poll conducted this fall, girls drank more of every kind of alcohol than boys--beer, wine, alcopops and hard liquor--among teens who had consumed alcohol in the last six months.

One in 5 girls who tried alcopops "have thrown up, or passed out, from drinking," according to the report, funded by the AMA and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

"The percentage of girls who drink is on the rise faster than boys," said AMA President-elect J. Edward Hill.

Girls are attracted to the sweet taste of alcopops, "but the key to [the beverage companies'] success, we think, is their aggressive advertising," Hill said.

Along with beverages marketed as "hard lemonade" or "hard cola," alcopops include bottled drinks such as Seagram's Peach Fuzzy Navel, a flavored cooler labeled with pictures of ripe peaches and a beach scene with a lone female figure in a swimsuit strolling along a stretch of sand. The label on a bottle of Bartles & Jaymes' Strawberry Delight also depicts an inviting tropical setting, along with a portrait of ripe berries.

The Washington-based Beer Institute, an industry-trade group, responded to the AMA report with a statement that "flavored alcohol beverages are not new products in the marketplace, and marketing for these products is directed at adults."

The Beer Institute also pointed to two recent statements by the Federal Trade Commission that the agency has found no evidence that the drinks, also known as flavored malt beverages, are targeted at an underage market.

Sales of alcopops could be flat or even declining, market trackers say. Sales of Smirnoff Ice were down 32 percent over last year, and sales of Mike's Hard Lemonade had fallen 15 percent, according to Information Resources Inc.

Still, there are "tons of teenage girls who try those fruity drinks," said Tully Bertorelli, 16, a junior at Walter Payton College Prep in Chicago.

"Basically, kids are tricked," he said. "You see these beach pictures, like, `If you drink this, you'll probably have a party like this paradise party.'"

Werstein, who lives in Des Plaines and attends Kendall College in Chicago, said underage drinkers are attracted to both the image and the taste of chick drinks.

"Even guys," she said.

Many ads she's seen refer to the drinks as "refreshing or lemony," she said.

"I guess to some younger people, [the taste of] beer doesn't sound so refreshing," she said. Read More...
Chicago Tribune: Teen girls drinking more, AMA warns