62 Of Alcohol Web Sites Use Youth example essay topic

Alcoholic beverages such as beer can cause problems for many people throughout life, but for college aged people alcohol can cause the worst. In college most people are being out on their own for the first time ever and having that freedom they have never had. Some problems caused by alcohol in college are, missing an assignment or class, or even death. Drinking a beer a day has been found healthy, but in college that is never the case. Not that everyone drinks or everyone drinks a lot but there is always that select group that will drink more nights out of a week than not. And when that group drinks they drink heavily in order to be drunk.

Problems occur with many people who do drink very heavily because it impairs their ability to get things done for many hours including the ones when drinking and after. Student may not attend class the day after drinking because he or she may be to sick or just exhausted from the drinking the night before. After the student skips the first one it becomes easier and easier to skip classes, therefore it is more likely to happen over and over again. Also when skipping classes a student can miss anything from an important lecture to a test which can really hurt their grades.

The final big issue is the number of students who die every year from alcohol poisoning. Alcohol poisoning is caused by excessive amounts of alcohol in the body. Some very common ways for students to get this is by doing shots of hard liq our or now the tool called a beer bong. Both involve swallowing a lot of alcohol very quickly which is very dangerous for the body, and can many times lead to being very ill or death. College is a huge part of every student's life, and there is no reason to try to ruin college or life by excessive drinking. Students need to understand there is more to life than partying or going out every night.

Maybe if the school did more about educating the students on the issues of drinking there wouldn't be so many binge drinkers. If that huge paper is due in a couple days or there is class in the morning going out and partying is not going to help with either situation. alcohol to children For years, the population has been exposed to different forms of media. Newspapers, magazines, television, films, radio, and more recently the Internet are ways of promoting ideas, spreading news, and advertising products. Alcoholism has always been a detriment to our society, especially in the hands of our youth.

Many factors cause children to participate in the consumption of alcohol - alcoholic parents, peer pressure, and the media are major determining factors. The most influential factor, however, is the media, which is generally unregulated and uncensored. Whether intentional or not, there has always been an existence of alcohol in all forms of the media. I examine how alcohol-brewing companies intentionally target youth in their advertising campaigns. I also analyze other forms of media such as film and the Internet to find examples of the use and display of alcohol, and how it affects, and is targeted towards youth. There have been a number of campaigns to combat the undiscriminating advertising of alcohol to young people during the course of the last two decades.

Recently, President Clinton and the Food and Drug Administration of the United States have rightfully attacked alcohol company abuses in advertising, with the support of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSP I), and the American Medical Association. (Hacker, George A. (May 16, 1996). Press Conference on Alcohol Advertising Reforms.) According to Commissioner Kessler of the Food and Drug Administration, addiction to nicotine is a 'pediatric disease. ' If that's true for smoking, which kills users much later in life, then youthful alcohol consumption can only be labeled a 'pediatric disaster. ' His studies also show that the earlier children begin to drink the more likely they are to become heavy drinkers, use illicit drugs and suffer problems related to their alcohol and drug use. At a press conference on alcohol advertising reforms, George A. Hacker, Director of the Alcohol Policies Project reported results of a survey conducted in the United States to determine evidence on the use of alcohol by youths.

Some of his findings are as follows: . The median age at which children begin drinking alcohol is just over 13 years. 67 percent of students in the 8th grade have tried an alcoholic beverage... Alcohol is the leading cause of death for young people, ages 15 to 24. They die in alcohol-related car crashes, drownings, fires, homicides, and suicides... Fifty-two percent of 12th-graders report having been drunk within the year.

Among 8th- and 10th-graders, the reported drunkenness during the year was 18 percent and 39 percent, respectively. These findings can only beg the question -- Does the presence of alcohol in media influence young people to drink? And do alcohol companies target youth in their advertising? Whether the media of communication is advertising, television, the Internet or movies, many studies have been conducted to determine an answer to this controversial issue. It is in my belief, after studying the topic, the presence of alcoholic beverages in different forms of mass media can heavily influence young teens and adolescents to drink. It can also be said that in many cases, alcohol producers try to influence children in many of their advertisements.

A look at some of the practices of the world's largest brewer, Anheuser-Busch (Budweiser), shows that the company is involved in attracting underage consumers to its brands. Budweiser beer uses an assortment of cute animals to promote its products, including frogs, ants, penguins, dogs, chimpanzees and horses -- many of them animated, and clearly attractive to young children. A growing body of evidence shows that these ads attract, entertain, and teach young people about beer. The three Budweiser beer frogs, which croak 'Bud- wei's-er' in different patterns to form the word Budweiser, provide an example of beer advertising that appeals to young children. In criticism of the Budweiser frogs, James McNeal, author of Customers, and a Professor of Marketing at Texas A&M University writes that 'children often value frogs; adults often don't. ' After all, children do grow up with a strong interest in frogs, proven in stories such as A Frog Prince and Frog and Toad.

A study done by the San Francisco-based Center on Alcohol Advertising that tested 9-11 year old children proved that 73% of them recalled the frogs's logan from television advertisements. Another Anheuser-Busch product, Bud Light also seems to appeal to younger consumers. A new series of their advertisements involve 'The Jerky Boys,' two adolescent pranksters who spend their time making prank phone calls. According to Sound Data Incorporated, 26% of music consumers who say they like, or strongly like 'The Jerky Boys' are under the age of 21. Recently, the American Medical Association conducted a study in which their objective was to identify the characteristics associated with tobacco and alcohol use portrayed in G-rated animated films. All of the films released between 1937 and 1997 that were available on videotape were reviewed.

The results were surprising to say the least. Of 50 films reviewed, 25 displayed at least one event of alcohol use. Alcohol was portrayed by 63 characters, for a total duration of 27 minutes. Their conclusion was that more than two thirds of animated children's films feature tobacco or alcohol use in the story plot without any clear messages of negative effects associated with use of the substances (The Journals of the American Medical Association, Vol. 281 No. 12, March 24/31, 1999). The films that were studied by the AMA are seen by millions of children and adults, some, the most popular movies ever made. Many of the films are labeled masterpieces and are readily available to children in the theatres and on videocassette / DVD.

While the content of the films is not necessarily used to influence children to drink alcohol, as opposed to Anheuser-Busch's advertising methods, it teaches children the wrong ideas about drinking, and causes them to make the wrong decisions. A child sees hundreds of animated films while growing up. When the characters in Pocahontas, or Mulan, for example, are portrayed as consuming large amounts of alcohol, it can give the child an early impression that alcohol is condoned in society. Because films are of so much significance to children, the messages put forth in films can often contradict the messages that have been reinforced by their parents. According to the Centre for Media Education, the Internet now acts as a 'sanctuary' for content that is restricted in other media. The institute clearly mentioned the mass of alcohol and tobacco advertisements geared to adolescents.

In their report titled 'Alcohol and Tobacco on the Web: New Threats to Youth,' the organization writes that 62% of alcohol web sites use 'youth-oriented' features. This new type of advertising puts power into the hands of the marketers to reach and influence youth. Recent studies have indicated that children and adolescents constitute a highly significant portion of Internet users, giving alcohol companies an opportunity to advertise on another media, having even more exposure to youth. These campaigns are being launched at a time where drinking among youth is already at an alarmingly high level. Underage drinking is already a major health concern in the U.S. and Canada, and is the leading cause of death in youth ages 15-24. The Center for Media Education (CME) states blatantly that advertising and marketing play a major role in influencing the drinking behavior of youth.

These new Web marketing technologies gives marketers of alcohol an arsenal of powerful new weapons. Urgent action is needed to ensure that effective safeguards are put in place to protect young people from the harmful effects of online marketing of alcohol and tobacco. Because of the unique nature of the interactive media, many of these new forms of advertising, of particular appeal to youth, appear to be deceptive. Some of these practices may already be violating the law. The idea that children are influenced by alcohol in the media, and brewers' youth targeted advertising campaigns can be examined in both objectivist and theories. Both have overlapping ideas, however, the majority of my arguments have seemed to stem from the objectivist, realist theories.

Many of the anti-advertising campaigns and encourages of censorship in the media have obtained all their fact from behavior, cause and effect, experiments and surveys -- all of which fit into the theory of objectivism. On the other hand, the alcohol companies and film producers, etc., who believe that the presence of alcohol in the media cannot possibly influence a child to drink would formulate their arguments as. Because surveys and facts have argued against their theory that children are not influenced by alcohol in the media, they would reinforce to the public, what their meanings, values, and intentions really are. They would argue that a child cannot possibly be influenced by anything he / she sees - it is the child that ultimately decides what is right or wrong. Their arguments would be that multiple truths exist - some youth are more vulnerable to the media than others, for example. They would also examine what people really do in their lives.

For example, do thirteen-year-old children watch a beer commercial and run out and buy a case of beer right away? Despite what arguments can be formulated by either side, I believe, in this case, the objectivist theories cannot lie. As Hacker proved, alcohol is the leading cause of death for young people, ages 15 to 24. The world cannot close their eyes to the fact children are dying because of the excessive use of alcohol. The problem must be nipped in the bud if we are to end the 52% drinking rate in grade 12 classes across North America (Hacker). If the media does not influence the youth of our society to drink alcohol, then the question is -- what does?

We know that peer pressure and parental influence can be partial factors, but as the evidence clearly supports, children are most affected by alcohol in the media, and will continue to be unless regulation and censorship is put forth by our governments. Binge Drinking It's just another Friday night, but this time it's the guy's night out. What do many teenage boys have on their mind? They want to go cruising down the highway at 80 miles per hour with the windows down. Find some beer, and some women that they can get drunk, have sex with and have something to tell about the next day.

The sad thing is, that most of the time it is true. A survey was taken in Nebraska in September of 1995, which said 25.7% of adolescents aged 18 and younger said, they have used alcohol before having sex. That is just in Nebraska alone (Courtney, 288, 1995). It is also said that Fraternity and Sorority members drink more and drink more frequently than their peers and accept as normal high levels of alcohol consumption and associated problems. Fraternity-sponsored parties also may encourage heavy drinking. Studies have found that students who consider parties or athletics important and those who drink to get drunk appear most likely to binge drink or to drink heavily (Shalala, 1, 1995).

Although alcohol use by adolescents is frequent, alcoholism is very rare. Still, alcohol consumption by adolescents hinders normal development. Alcohol intake by children can result in learning impairment, hyperactivity, and personality and behavior problems, because today's society has accepted the casual use of alcohol (Effects, 1996, 1). Among men, research suggests that greater alcohol use is related to greater sexual aggression (Shalala, 1995, 2). Students living on campuses with higher proportions of binge drinkers experience more incidents of assault and unwanted sexual advances because of their peers' drinking than do students residing on campuses with lower proportions of binge drinkers (Shalala, 1995, 2).

Some campuses sponsor alcohol awareness events and classroom lectures and distribute information about alcohol use. Although such education programs raise students' awareness of issues surrounding alcohol use, these programs appear to have minimal effect on drinking and on the rates of alcohol problems. According to Donna E. Shalala, Secretary of Health and Human Services at The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, it seems that binge drinkers appear to engage in more unplanned sexual activity and to abandon safe sex techniques more often than students who do not binge drink (Shalala, 1995, 2). The purpose of this paper will prove whether or not Ms. Shalala is right or wrong.

The first study was done in 1992. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship of alcohol use to unsafe sex in Latinas. The study was conducted using telephone interviews. The interviews were conducted with 523 currently sexually active Latinas aged 18-49 years old. The telephone survey employed a modified Mitofsky-Waksberg sampling technique to identify Latino households in nine states with concentrations of Latinos ranging from 5 to 39% in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, California, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas.

Latinos in these states represent 77% of all United States Latinos (Mar " in, 1992, 1103). The screening procedure involved identifying the ethnicity, gender, and age of household members. Potential respondents were asked 'Do you or any of the members of your household consider yourselves to be Latinos or Hispanics?' An eligible respondent in the household was selected using the Kish method, which lists all adult household members and then uses one of 12 possible selection schemes to randomly select among those eligible (Mar " in, 1992, 1104). Interviewers were bilingual males and females. Experienced interviewers recruited respondents by telling them this was a national health survey and that the topic was AIDS. Interviewers received specific training on how to ask the highly personal questions used in this research (Mar " in, 1992, 1104).

A response rate in survey sampling can be defined as the ratio of the number of questionnaires completed of eligible elements to the number of eligible elements in the sample. Businesses, faxes, and non households were ineligible for reporting. After these were eliminated, age and gender of adults in the household was determined for 67.1% of eligible telephone numbers. Also 86.4% of those contacted who met the requirements for the study provided complete interviews. A response rate of 58% for the entire sample was obtained (Mar " in, 1992, 1104-5). The interviews were 100 open-ended calls, and two gender exclusive focus groups with Latinos and Latinas in San Francisco.

Its purpose was to identify perceived consequences of condom use with secondary and primary partners, difficulties with condom use, and the average aspects of use. The final version of the interview took an average of 24 minutes to complete and explored a variety of topics related to condoms and sexual behavior. The questions mainly asked about alcohol use prior to sex, sexual comfort, self-effectiveness scale, secondary partner response to condom use, and acculturation (Mar " in, 1992, 1105). Of the 624 Latinas aged 18-49 interviewed in this study, 523 (83.8%) were sexually active.

These women provided responses to the question about alcohol use prior to sex. Fully 65% indicated that they never used alcohol prior to sex, 28% said they used alcohol less than half the time, and only 7.5% used alcohol half the time or more (Mar " in, 1992, 1106). The demographic characteristics of Latinas who use or do not use alcohol before sex are shown in the table below. There were a number of differences between the groups. Alcohol users were younger [t (519) = 2.3, p