Piloting2_Group+3_Bruna&Diogo&Francisca

Is binge drinking a problem in Portugal?

First of all, we will talk about the theme ' binge drinking  ', trying to explain it's real meaning. Secondly we will refer some studies and researches about Portugal that we've made, and thought that would be a good idea to make clear our opinions about them. Lastly we will talk about the problems it causes in Portugal and solutions that can reduce the number of accidents, destroyed families, social and economical problem and and worst of all death! To conclude we will give some examples of other countries besides Portugal, that suffer binge drinking and try to alert people from these situations.  People drink for all sorts of reasons , mostly because in moderation, alcohol is helpful to relax and feel more sociable. Binge drinking is all about getting drunk to forget problems.  There are lots of different definitions of binge drinking, and they tend to be a bit vague. For example: some time ago a recent government report describes binge drinking as 'the consumption of excessive amounts of alcohol within a limited time period', which can mean different things to people. Another possible definition is 'the consumption of twice the daily benchmark given in the Government's guidelines'. This equates to six to eight units for men, and four to six units for women at once. Binge drinking affects lots of countries and people, and Portugal is one of them.  Binge drinking is a very serious problem that affects lots of countries all over the world... and obviously lots of people, including teens. This fact is very bad because if we're living in a society that usually drink a lot, we'll create a drinking culture, like what's happening on Russia, were almost all the population consumes alcoholic drinks, specially Vodka Pure... and obviously it brings consequences: lots of cases of cardiovascular diseases, suicides ( people who are drunk ), crimes because when we are drunk we don't know what we are doing and we can damage something or someone unconsciously, etc. Unfortunately, and like we already know, Russia is not the only country where this kind of situations happen but some studies prove that the cold makes people drink more and consequently, get drunk. Therefore, we have a possible reason for the big number of alcoholic people in countries like Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Ireland...  As consequence of the big number of crimes and suicides due to alcoholic drinks, we just can take an important lesson: we have to stop consuming alcohol NOW!! How? It's easy: reduce the production of alcoholic drinks, raise the prices,and rise the age that permits society to drink alcohol and much more. These theme should be discussed, explained in schools and advertised, trying to convince and alert the society that drinking in excess just makes our life worst, doesn't give any benefits besides the feeling that drinking causes in people. We don't need more studies to prove what we already know! Binge drinking is increasing very fast and if we want the next generation to have a good future we really should stop this terrible vice! It's why knowing how the adolescent number of binge drinking is nowadays and it's consequences! it's important to people realize how serious drinking problem is becoming very fast <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff8100; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">! The number of binge drinking in adolescent is like this:

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 121%; text-align: left;"> <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Binge drinking among youth ages 12 to 17 appears to occur most frequently in the North Central region of the United States and in metropolitan areas. However binge drinking being very common in this <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">regions we can also notice and for our surprise that our country ( Portugal ) is going throw a very bad situation too, as studies show.
 * Often begins around age 13, tends to increase during adolescence, peak in young adulthood (ages 18 to 22), then gradually decrease.
 * Binge drinking during the past 30 days was reported by 8 percent of youth ages 12 to 17 and 30 percent of those ages 18 to 20.
 * Among persons under the legal drinking age (12 to 20), 15 percent were binge drinkers and 7 percent were heavy drinkers.
 * About 10.4 million adolescents ages 12 to 20 reported using alcohol. Of those, 5.1 million were binge drinkers and included 2.3 million heavy drinkers who binged at least five times a month.
 * Nearly 9 percent of boys and 7 percent of girls ages 12 to 17 reported binge drinking in the previous month.
 * White non-Hispanic youth ages 12 to 17 reported the highest frequency of binge drinking (9 percent) as compared with 6 percent of Hispanic and 3 percent of black non-Hispanic youth.

The countries where binge drinking problem among adults is more noticed is like this:

1 - Ireland, 2 - Finland, 3 - England, 4 - Russia, 5 - Australia, 6 - Denmark, 7 - Germany, 8 - Czech Republic, 9 - Italy, 10 - France.

In other study, that was referee to teenagers, the list was completely different, and <span style="color: #ff8100; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 121%; text-align: left;">Portugal was there as the third European country with the worth numbers of excess of alcohol in teenagers <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 121%; text-align: left;"> and for you to see UK was numbered as forth! It proves that, everyone talks in the UK but don't realize that Portugal can be more affected in some cases... <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 121%; text-align: left;"> <span style="color: #ff8100; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">As we can see it depends on the study to see which country has more binge drinking and what ages it affects mostly! <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> To sum up I think it is important to say that we talked and tried to explain why binge drinking is so dangerous. The problems it causes, the solutions we have to fix for this huge problem that is always increasing, the ages and countries it affects mostly,are examples of issues addressed. And we discovered that OUR country, Portugal, is also in a very bad situation. So we think that it´s very important to read carefully our opinions and try to understand that if we don't give our best to stop this vice and alert everyone no one will! If we want the next generation to be healthy, responsible and if we want to save many lives, it's our obligation to be helpful for our society! With no more words to say we think that we removed any doubt about binge drinking in Portugal.