TEENAGERS who own football shirts, rugby tops or other items sponsored by beer brands are more likely to grow up into binge drinkers, a controversial study has found.
Those who have any alcohol-sponsored product, from fridge magnets to keyrings, tend to drink more as they get older, it says.
But clothing is the most commonly found type of product with alcohol branding and in Britain that is likely to be spor
ts gear – football shirts and, occasionally, rugby and cricket wear.
Alcohol firms claim sponsorship is intended to persuade drinkers to switch brands rather than to drink more, but the study suggests it is an "effective" way of reaching teenagers.
Having a T-shirt with a well known beer brand is associated with the transition from non-drinking children into teens having their first taste of alcohol right through to binge drinkers. The research, published in the journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine,
was carried out in the United States where many own T-shirts, baseball caps and other merchandise blazing the names of brands like Budweiser and Coors.
In Britain, Celtic and Rangers football shirts carry the name Carlsberg, Welsh rugby tops have that of local brew Brains and several county cricket clubs are backed by brewers.
Sports kits in children's sizes are banned from carrying alcohol sponsorship in Britain but not in adult sizes.
Researchers surveyed 6,500 people aged ten to 14 in 2003 about their drinking behaviour and their attitudes to drink. About 11 per cent owned alcohol branded products.
Follow-up surveys at eight-month intervals looked at how their attitudes had changed and how much they drank. By the end, 20 per cent owned alcohol branded products.
The researchers, from Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Centre in New Hampshire, analysed the answers for "drinking susceptibility"
and found that those who owned alcohol branded merchandise "appear more likely to transition into through the stages of drinking from susceptibility to beginning drinking to binge drinking".
Of those who owned merchandise, 64 per cent owned clothing such as T-shirts and 24 per cent owned headwear such as baseball caps. Other items included pens or branded glasses.
Three in four of all branded products were for beer.
The study found teenagers who did not drink were least likely to own such products and those who drank the most were most likely.
Lead researcher Auden C McClure said: "The results demonstrate a prospective relationship between alcohol-branded merchandise ownership and initiation of both alcohol use and binge drinking."
The study said: "(This] provides strong evidence that alcohol-branded merchandise distribution among adolescents plays a role in their drinking behaviour and provides a basis for policies to restrict the scope of such alcohol-marketing practices."
In France, all alcohol advertising is banned – when Wales played France at rugby last weekend, Brains' name was missing from their shirts because the match went out on French television.
Restrictions apply in the UK, but the
Advertising Association believes friends are more likely to encourage drinking than advertising. A spokeswoman, Sue Eustace, said: "Blunt solutions like advertising bans are not the answer."
David Poley, chief executive of the industry's regulatory body, the Portman Group, added: "There are strict controls on drinks marketing. Last year, we took the decision to completely remove branding from children's replica sports shirts. We're not aware of any other merchandise aimed at children."
Professor Ian Gilmore, president of the Royal College of Physicians, said: "There is ever increasing evidence that alcohol promotion influences the drinking behaviour of young people and current voluntary approaches to controlling such promotions have been ineffective.
"What is now needed in the UK is a debate about whether we should adopt a more stringent set of regulations of alcohol advertising and promotion."
