Friday 17 June 2011

In The Presence Of Greatness

Here we go again. With Nanny Beeb predictably leading the charge.

[...] the study also looked at what influences excessive teen drinking - and the habits of parents seem to be particularly powerful.

The odds of a teenager getting drunk repeatedly is twice as great if they have seen their parents under the influence, even if only a few times.
So, kids are more likely to indulge in booze if their parents - with whom they share genes - are fond of a drink or seven? As has been known for around 200 years, you mean?

How fascinating!

And the authors say that parental supervision is also important - if parents don't know where their children are on a Saturday night, or let them watch 18 certificate films unsupervised, they are more likely to have had an alcoholic drink.
And that if it is in the parents' nature to be risk tolerant with regard to what they permit their kids to do, consequentially the same attitude to risk is likely to be replicated in the offspring to whom the parents' genes are passed?

Ground-breaking stuff! Well, that's the Nobel sorted for this year, other social scientists may as well sell up their epidemiological software and drive a cab.

The Royal College of Physicians then chips in with their unique brand of logic.

"This shows that the government needs to concentrate on increasing the price per unit of alcohol and reducing its availability as their main priorities"
Yes. The fact that human DNA is performing in exactly the way it has done for millions of years is evidence that Tesco should have to up the price of their beer.

Truly we are blessed to share our time on Earth with such genius minds.

UPDATE: As noted in the comments, this is another example of the tobacco control template being used to good effect by those intent on denormalising alcohol. Exactly the same 'monkey see, monkey do' junk science has been a prime justification for banning smoking in parks. You know, where kids go.


14 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

I saw that article and considered it beneath contempt, for all the reasons you mention and more.

Anonymous said...

"if parents don't know where their children are on a Saturday night, or let them watch 18 certificate films unsupervised, they are more likely to have had an alcoholic drink."

Isn't that a bit like saying, "If you buy kippers on Tuesday, it will not rain"?


W.V = noginin. I'm just on my way out to get some.

Dick Puddlecote said...

MW: Yes, it's pretty shoddy stuff, yet the Beeb have been trumpeting it on web, TV and radio all day. Just seen that a proper blogger agrees with my tabloid shite too. Which is nice. :)

Henry: It matters not how scrupulous the 'evidence' is, merely that they get stuff, any stuff, broadcast to implant alcohol armageddon in public consciousness.

(btw, I've got less than half a bottle so might pop out myself later to be safe) ;)

Trooper Thompson said...

I've heard bears are twice as likely to shit in the woods if they've seen their parents do it.

Anonymous said...

Oh, here we go again. Now, wasn't one of the anti-smoking movement's early mantras that "children of parents who smoked were xxx times more likely to smoke themselves" in an effort to shame parents into giving up "for the sake of the cheeldren?"

Yet more evidence that the template is being almost exactly applied to drinking in the way it was applied to smoking. If they would only remove their heads from the sand, sit up and take notice, non-smoking drinkers would be able to predict the anti-alcohol movement's next tactic simply by taking a look at what the anti-smoking movement's next one was after this, and take steps to counter it before it happens. Doubt if they will, though.

Carl V Phillips said...

That RCP comment just boggles the mind.
So the RCP is arguing that if we can find some predictors of alcohol use that have nothing to do with parents then that is a reason we should refrain from forcing price increases? Someone should perhaps pose that implication of their claim to them.

Dick Puddlecote said...

Anon @ 19:21: Well spotted. You're indeed correct that it's another tactic taken from the anti-tobacco playbook.

Ivan D said...

I don’t actually mind the report too much. If you read it, it is predictable stuff but nowhere near as bad as the BBC article suggests.

What I do have a problem with is it appearing as front page news on the BBC. It is the BBC that added the quotes from the talentless media studies graduate and the pressure group pretending to represent doctors.

I question how a national institution famed for its objectivity has sunk to such depths and why we are expected to continue to pay for the BBC to manufacture news in support of causes favoured by its less than objective health editors and their mates in the charity industry.

DerekP said...

Using Nanny Beeb's thinking about DNA and family infuence might have some surprising effects once people start applying such reasoning to Islamic Fundamental Terrorism, and quote the Beeb as their inspiration.

banned said...

And during the Beeb 'discussion' the anti drink woman said "You can't just ban (alcohol)" which outlines their gameplan succinctly.

Anonymous said...

Seen this crap on the BBC breakfast *cough* "news", I thought - this is just a regurgitated PR release and poured another vodka, turned the telly off and watched some tunes on youtube...

Anonymous said...

A much more serious problem is your wife's repeated moaning on driving you to drink!

Surreptitious Evil said...

It's going to be fun seeing what excuse they come up with for the pub closures once they've banned drinking in them.

By that time, just for self-preservation, I'll have a full scale distillery in the cattle byre.

smokervoter said...

It's Father's Day here and the Obamessiah just sermonized that "more than anything, they [the cheeldren] just want us to be a part of their lives." Apparently either he was born a fully grown adult man or completely skipped the teen angst phase of his life. I'm a self-made sinner, I proudly picked up all of my nasty habits on my own initiative.