A study analyzing alcohol drinking among Americans shows a shift in the habit in different age groups and it isn’t what you would expect.
Several studies in the recent past have warned about the adverse effects alcohol can have on health. People are also motivated to take up social media challenges like Dry January, which requires you to refrain from drinking for the entire month. However, Americans of certain age groups have either remained steady with their drinking habit or have been drinking more now than they did two decades ago.
Study highlight changes in Americans’ drinking habits
The study by Gallup from October 2023 shows a significant decrease in alcohol consumption among young adults compared to the older population.
The poll results showed a decline from 72% to 62% among people aged 18 to 34 and an increase from 49% to 59% among the older generation – aged 55 or more.
It’s the people in middle age, 35 to 54 that remain steady with drinking alcohol in twenty years with just a two percent difference – from 67% to 69%.
This comes as a surprise owing to the infamous opinion about the millennials and Gen Zs leading an unhealthy lifestyle. Baby boomers have been consistently drinking more, it seems.
The difference in the drinking habit was measured using the shrinking estimate of the number of drinks per week. While it has dropped from 5.2 drinks in 2001-2003 per week to 3.6 in 2021-2023, people aged 55 or older have gone from an average of 3.9 drinks in the last seven days to 4.0.
Factors contributing to the shift in the habit
One of the reasons for the decline in the drinking rate among young American adults could be the demographic, notes the study. Reportedly, the percentage of 18 to 34-year-olds who are “Black, Hispanic, Asian, or another racial minority has nearly doubled over the past two decades” – just under a third of the sample from the age group used for the study.
It also states that non-White Americans drink less compared to White Americans across all age groups. So the average drinking rate has naturally fallen.
Meanwhile, the reduced number of drinks per week reflects health consciousness, with about 52% of young adults viewing moderate drinking as “unhealthy.” It was just 34% just half a decade ago.
