Adolescent Binge Drinking

The article, “Alcohol can rewire the teenage brain,” starts by stating that more than 4,750 American kids aged 15 and younger, said they took their first drink of alcohol already. Kids who start drinking before the age of 15 are more likely to become alcoholics because they get addicted to the drug. The article also states that they are more likely to start binge drinking. A study conducted by Lorena Siqueira a pediatrician at the Florida International University and Nicklaus Children’s hospital in Miami, reported that, “When kids drink, they tend to do heavy drinking,” and that, “Their bodies are not ready to handle that kind of alcohol.” Teens think that alcohol will help them feel happier and better, but that is not true. Teens also drink

There are many consequences of binge drinking. It causes a lot of health problems in an adolescent’s life, possibly short or long term. Feeling nauseated, having a hangover and memory loss are just a few of many things that are short term. In addition to short term effects, the long term effects are more severe and even deadly. One of the worst long term effects of binge drinking is the loss of brain stem cells. Dr Fulton Crews, mentioned that “The adolescent 's brain is much more sensitive to alcohol toxicity than adults’, including being vulnerable to cell death.”

Every 51 minutes in America, someone is killed in a drunk driving crash. A dangerous issue facing society today is the problem of teen drinking and driving. Currently an approximate of 10,076 people die in drunk driving crashes per year. If positive progress to ceasing this act does not happen, teens will continue to drink and drive putting everybody on the road at risk. Teens who drink and drive put everyone on the road at risk, causing serious crashes that could be preventable.

Drinking among teenagers is prone to cause long term damages in their life. At the adolescent stage, teenagers brain are still developing up until the they are in the 20’s. It is a fact that alcohol causes brain damages to anyone who consumes it but because of this occurrence in adolescent’s body,they are more affected by this. According to Saner in the article Health: Drunk young things: Teenage drinkers don 't just risk making fools of

Some may think that teenagers are grown up enough and are mature enough to drink alcoholic beverages at the age of eighteen. However, research indicates otherwise. To start off, alcohol is very harmful to the brain. It kills brain cells, and it affects the cerebellum, medulla, hippocampus and many other parts of the brain. It can be seen why alcohol is so dangerous in the article “Alcohol and Developing Brain”. The author says, “Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant. Alcohol can appear to be a stimulant because, initially, it depresses the part of the brain that controls inhibitions” (toosmarttostart.samhsa.gov). Since

To further develop their position, the author also explores the details of “binge drinking” and states that “youth often consume more alcohol in one sitting than adults, in part because the brain of a maturing adolescent can tolerate more alcohol with delayed effects as compared to the brain of an adult”. They go on to describe the possibilities and dangers of alcohol poisoning and the fact that every year, over four thousand youth deaths involve alcohol consumption. This statistic is backed up not only by the CDC in the article, but also in studies done by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

For my research project I decided to look at binge drinking in teens. Binge drinking interested me because so many teenagers drink alcohol when they go out and don’t know what consequences it has on the body. Binge drinking is the consumption of an unreasonable amount of alcohol in a short period of time. I have chosen to research ‘What are the psychological and physiological effects of binge drinking in teens?’. I chose this question because I wanted to inform myself and other teens on the effects of binge drinking. The research methods used throughout my research were internet articles and a survey.

drinking can have harmful effects on a developing brain (“Dangers of Teen Drinking” FTC). As

Alcohol can take a huge toll on adolescent brains as well. In the article, “Teen Drinking May Cause Irreversible Brain Damage” the reader is told that Susan Tapert took a close look into the nerve tissue in teens’ brains. She found that kids who binge drink had “a number of little dings”(4) in their nerve tissue. This shows that there is poor connection with the brain cells. The hippocampus was affected and looked different as well. This affects memory,

Lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18 will forestall underage binge drinking, as well as terrible injuries or deaths that result from such conduct. Keeping the drinking age at such a high age, unintentionally, is driving to more cases of binge drinking because it has become a social norm among this age group, however by lowering the drinking age to 18, binge drinking will decline, because it will demystify the drunken experience therefore viewed as a normal social practice.

When you are around the teenpreteen age, your brain is maturing. Alcohol damages the maturing process by killing

Childhood and teenage years are major times for brain growth and can be negatively affected by the use of alcohol. In the report “The Surgeon General’s Call to Action To Prevent and Reduce Underage Drinking” by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, it states, “Creates secondhand effects that can put others at risk. Loud and unruly behavior, property destruction, unintentional injuries, violence, and even death because of underage alcohol use afflict innocent parties.” (2007) In brief, alcohol can be related to the extremely violent behavior of some teens. In fact, 45% of those who die in drunk driving incidents are not the driver themselves but those around them. (The Surgeon General’s Call to Action To Prevent and Reduce Underage Drinking, 2007) For this reason, opponents argue that minors have no right to drink alcoholic beverages. Therefore, critics who oppose minors being allowed to drink believe alcohol will lead to very troublesome problems for youth and their

     A lower dosage of alcohol will damage a young brain compared to a fully mature brain, and young brains are damaged more quickly. Alcohol exposure during adolescence is linked with a reduced ability to learn compared with those not exposed until adulthood.Alcohol is implicated in more than 40 percent of all college academic problems and 28 percent of all college dropouts. At both 2- and 4-year colleges, the heaviest drinkers make the lowest grades.High school students who use alcohol or other

To what extent is youth violence, crimes and anti-social behaviour linked to youths binge drinking.

Teenage binge drinking (consumption of five or more alcohol drinks in a row) has grown to be a serious problem in the United States. A report in 2009 from the Surgeon General’s office show alcohol consumption by teens start as early as 11 years of age for boys and 13 years of age for girls (Grant & Dawson, 1997). In the youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Report (2007), data results showed that over three million teenagers in grades 6 through 12 are alcoholics, and several million teens have serious health issues due to drinking. Further research conducted by the Harvard School of Public health (2006) show a direct correlation of automobile accidents, alcohol poisoning, poor academic performance. violence and