September 23rd, 2009 by Kate Yaffe

Britain’s youngsters amongst world’s worst for drinking, smoking and teenage pregnancy, warns the OECD.

Drinking, promiscuity and a cycle of low aspiration mean Britain is becoming the ‘bad parent’ of the western world.
A vast study of youngsters’ well-being in 30 industrialised nations ranked Britain among the worst for health, lifestyles and school standards relative to public spending levels.

Underage teenagers in Britain are more likely to get drunk than those in any other country, and the proportions of teenage mothers and single-parent families are among the highest in the survey.

In ‘risky behaviour’ – a combination of drinking, smoking and teenage pregnancy – Britain’s performance is worse than all nations other than Turkey and Mexico.

A third of children aged of 13 and 15 in Britain had been drunk at least twice, despite being too young to be served alcohol, compared with 12 per cent of American youngsters and 14 per cent of French.

Unlike in many other countries, drunkenness was more common among girls, with half of 15-year-olds having got drunk at least twice against 44 per cent of boys.

Teenage pregnancy is also far higher than average across the OECD. The UK has the fourth highest teenage pregnancy rate after Mexico, Turkey and the United States. In Britain, 23.4 teenage girls per 1,000 gave birth in 2005.

These truly are shocking statistics and I agree, we have a problem in how our young people feel about themselves. However, I do not think there is any quick fix.

This behaviour is systemic in our society and requires us to look at the problems at a much deeper level. Things I think that can only be fixed by us looking at cultural legacy and constructive cultivation, two things I mentioned in an earlier article about education. As a nation we need to challenge the attitudes and perspectives that we have towards these areas and ask not how we can fix the problem, but how can we change the attitudes of the nation towards drink, (which the powers that be may not want to change, due to the revenue earned from taxation, etc).

How can we cultivate our children to want more? This would be far more productive then blaming the youth or the sale of alcohol, etc. However, it would take one brave and courageous person to implement that kind of policy and my bet is that we have no one big enough – anyone want to elect me into government?

Read  Britain’s Youth worse in western world

Read more Youth and Drugs and Binge Drinking

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