Underage Drinking

Underage Drinking
T                   Today, alcohol is widely available and aggressively promoted throughout society, and young people like to drink. Underage drinking is a significant problem that needs to be resolved. “Each year, approximately 5,000 young people under the age of 21 die as a result of underage drinking; this includes about 1,900 deaths from motor vehicle crashes, 1,600 as a result of homicides, 300 from suicide, as well as hundreds from other injuries such as falls, burns, and drownings”(Alcohol Alert Number 67, 2006). To resolve this problem, we need to find out the consequences of underage drinking, the reasons of why adolescents drink, and the prevention of underage drinking.
Why is underage drinking a significant problem? It is not only a personal health problem, but also a society problem. Obviously, alcohol is harmful to our health. Besides health problem, underage drinking leads to more social problems, such as more traffic accidents and more crimes.
Underage drinking leads to a health problem. It is harmful to adolescents’ brain, liver and their growth. Once adolescents start to drink, they put themselves into a potential health risk, especially those who drink heavily, the risk is higher. Adolescence is the changing period from childhood to adulthood. During this time, there are some significant changes in our body. Alcohol will interrupt the key process of body development.
“New research on adolescent brain development suggests that early heavy alcohol use may also have negative effects on the actual physical development of brain structure” (Reducing Underage Drinking: A Collective Responsibility). it includes cognitive impairment and memory impairment. “Sophisticated imaging techniques revealed structural differences in the brains of 17–year–old adolescents who displayed alcohol–induced intellectual and behavioral impairment. Specifically, the hippocampus—a part of the brain important for learning and memory—was smaller in... [continues]

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