2024-01-22 23:01:07
In a bar in Toulouse, September 11, 2023. CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP
Overall, France drinks less, but it’s still a lot. This is the meaning of a study by Public Health France published Tuesday January 23 in the Weekly epidemiological bulletin (BEH). Over the past three decades, alcohol consumption has declined but remains ” very high “, according to the health agency. Between 2000 and 2021, the share of weekly drinkers among 18-75 year olds fell from 62.6% to 39% and the share of daily drinkers from 21.5% to 8%.
Consumption patterns differ between territories, generations and sexes. In 2021, the two regions with the highest number of daily drinkers were Occitanie and Nouvelle-Aquitaine, while overseas and Ile-de-France occupied the bottom of the table. With age, the intensity of drinking decreases and the frequency increases: in 2021, 18-24 year olds consumed alcohol on average 64 days a year, with more than three drinks each time; 65-75 year olds drank 123 days a year, a little more than a glass and a half each time.
In the eyes of researchers, the most remarkable development in recent years concerns women. They consume less than men in general, but, for those over 35, the practice of heavy occasional drinking (IPA), i.e. at least six drinks, has increased. From 2005 to 2021, the rate of women reporting an API per month increased from 6.1% to 8.6%, and the rate of women reporting an API per week increased from 1% to 1.8%.
Read also: Alcohol: risky consumption down slightly in France
To explain it, “the increase in the proportion of women participating in the labor market, the decline in the age at first marriage or the age of the first child are mentioned by certain researchers”write the authors, adding that women working in masculine environments may want to “comply with certain informal codes” or use alcohol as a stress reliever. Furthermore, the industry is implementing a “aggressive marketing” to reach them.
“Women more vulnerable”
“At low doses, the risk linked to alcohol is equivalent between men and women, but in the event of significant consumption, women are more vulnerable”underlines Bernard Basset, the president of the Association Addictions France, who adds that the practices of occasional significant alcohol consumption “have effects on the brain and should be monitored closely”. Mickael Naassila, the president of the French Society of Alcoholology, calls for preventive actions that “restate the specificity of women in relation to men” regarding alcohol.
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