Getting wetter? - regulation of alcohol consumption

Reason, April, 1996 by Stanton Peele

Despite much evidence to the contrary, in 1990 the dietary guidelines compiled by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in conjunction with the Department of Agriculture asserted that "drinking has no net health benefit." But the government faced increasing difficulty sustaining its blanket condemnation of alcohol, and the latest dietary guidelines, issued in January, announced that drinking could be beneficial. The report even went so far as to note that "alcoholic beverages have been used to enhance the enjoyment of meals by many societies throughout human history." The change occurred in part because additional scientific evidence appeared after the 1990 report. But the real obstacle had been cultural resistance. According to Assistant Secretary of Health Philip Lee, "There was a significant bias in the past against drinking." Marion Nestle, a guidelines committee member and chair of New York University's nutrition and food science department, said the change represented "a triumph of science and reason over politics."

Still, the revision does not represent a flip to Mediterranean-style attitudes. For one thing, the recommended daily consumption limits - one drink for women and two for men - are quite low. In Britain (hardly a Mediterranean culture), the government's "sensible drinking" limits are about twice the American levels: two to three drinks daily for women and three to four for men. Furthermore, the U.S. guidelines emphasize that children should not consume alcohol. This is far from a universal belief. In Spain, children of any age may drink beer or wine with a parent at a cafe. This is also true in New Zealand, provided a meal is being eaten. In Switzerland, children may drink on their own at 16, and in some cantons at 14. No industrial nation other than the United States restricts drinking to people 21 and older.

Forbidding drinking by children does not seem to reduce alcohol abuse. Psychiatrist George Vaillant, who tracked a group of Boston adolescents for four decades, found that Irish-Americans were seven times as likely to become alcoholic as were Italians, Greeks, and Jews. Yet the latter groups typically introduce children to alcohol, while in Irish culture children traditionally do not drink in the home.

Despite a legal drinking age of 21, youthful overdrinking is a common feature of American life. In national surveys, about half of male high school seniors and college students say they have consumed at least five drinks at a sitting in the previous two weeks. More than a third of female students say they've had four or more drinks at a time. The figure for sorority and fraternity members is 80 percent or higher. It stands to reason that teenagers who learn to drink with friends are less likely to acquire responsible habits than teenagers who learn to drink at home in a family setting.

Among other anomalous features of Irish drinking, Vaillant's Boston study found that there were more abstainers in this group as well as more alcoholics. One reason for this dichotomy was that many excessive drinkers had sworn off drinking altogether. The Italians, on the other hand, were more likely to react to a drinking problem by cutting down.