Parental drinking according to parental composition and adolescent binge drinking: findings from a nationwide high school survey in Japan

Abstract

Background Alcohol problems in parents have been revealed to affect adolescent alcohol misuse. However, few studies examine the effects of parental drinking on adolescent risky drinking (including binge drinking) in the general population. In particular, previous study findings are inconsistent regarding the influence of parental drinking according to parental composition. In this study, we aimed to examine the relationship between parental drinking, according to parental composition, and binge drinking among high school students in Japan. Methods We performed a secondary analysis of the Nationwide High School Survey on Drug Use and Lifestyle 2018, Japan. A total of 46,848 valid surveys from high school students of 78 schools were included for analysis. Logistic regression analysis with a generalized linear mixed model was conducted with binge drinking as the dependent variable and “parental drinking according to parental composition” (e.g., father’s drinking, mother’s drinking, father’s absence, mother’s absence, both parents drinking, and neither parent at home) as the independent variable, after adjusting with covariates. Binge drinking was defined as five or more alcoholic drinks for male adolescents or four or more alcoholic drinks for females on the same occasion within two hours. Results In the fully adjusted models, adolescents whose mothers drink (adjusted odds ratio (AOR): 1.50, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.06–2.12) were significantly associated with adolescent binge drinking. This risk was significantly higher among students with neither parent living at home (AOR: 4.35, 95% CI: 2.10–9.02). Conclusion Parental drinking and absence do affect adolescent binge drinking; our findings show that adolescents are more likely to engage in binge drinking if their mothers drink or if they are not living with either parent. Therefore, it is important to engage parents and non-parental family members in future programs and interventions to prevent adolescent binge drinking.

The potential adverse effects of minors' exposure to alcohol‐related stimuli via licenced venues: A narrative review

“…The 28 articles identified on parental alcohol intake only (i.e., not specifying children's observation of alcohol use) linked greater frequency and/or volume of consumption to negative alcohol‐related outcomes for their children [46, 79, 80, 83–107]. This effect was observed across numerous countries and cultural contexts, including Australia [87], Brazil [85, 90], Chile [86], China [105], Germany [97], Ireland [98], Japan [88], Mexico [107], Slovenia [96], Spain [101], Taiwan [79], the United Kingdom [91, 93, 94] and the United States [89, 92].…”

“…The 28 articles identified on parental alcohol intake only (i.e., not specifying children's observation of alcohol use) linked greater frequency and/or volume of consumption to negative alcohol‐related outcomes for their children [46, 79, 80, 83–107]. This effect was observed across numerous countries and cultural contexts, including Australia [87], Brazil [85, 90], Chile [86], China [105], Germany [97], Ireland [98], Japan [88], Mexico [107], Slovenia [96], Spain [101], Taiwan [79], the United Kingdom [91, 93, 94] and the United States [89, 92]. Thirteen of the identified studies were longitudinal and found that parental alcohol use is associated with children subsequently engaging in underage alcohol consumption, suggesting a causal link between these two outcomes [79, 84, 87, 90–94, 97, 99, 101, 103, 104].…”

“…These studies were limited by a reliance on retrospective recollection of alcohol consumption for both minors and their parents [80, 81, 87, 93, 94, 97, 102, 107, 108]. Some studies were further limited by requiring children to report on both their own and their parents' alcohol use [86, 88–90, 96–98, 101]. These methods for assessing alcohol‐consumption could be liable to recollection biases, potentially affecting the validity of the results.…”

Prospective association of family members’ sugar-sweetened beverages intake with children’s sugar-sweetened beverages consumption in China

“…Potential sex differences were found in intergenerational relationships between parents and their offspring [ 15 , 16 ]. In this analysis, we paid special attention to the sex differences and found that boys’ SSB consumption was more susceptible to their parents' SSB intake than girls’, and fathers seemed to have a greater influence on whether children consume SSB than mothers.…”

“…Thus, prospective studies with a clearly defined temporal relationship are more convincing than cross-sectional studies in elucidating potentially causal links between family members’ SSB consumption and children’s SSB intake. Moreover, sex differences in intergenerational relationships between parents and offspring were found in alcohol consumption [ 15 ] and physical activity [ 16 ], and sex difference also exists in SSB drinking behavior [ 17 ]. These lead us to speculate on the possible sex differences in the association for SSB intake between parents and children, which did not attract widespread attention yet.…”