Teens who own T-shirts or other merchandise featuring an alcohol brand appear more likely to drink alcohol, according to a report in the March issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
It's estimated that between 11 percent and 20 percent of U.S. teens own such merchandise, which includes T-shirts, hats or other items that feature a particular brand of beverage. Theres growing evidence that this specialized type of marketing effectively reaches teenagers and is associated with alcohol use.
Researchers from the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center conducted a telephone survey of a representative sample of 6,522 U.S. adolescents age 10 to 14 years in 2003. The teens reported information about their drinking behaviors and drinking susceptibility. At three follow-up surveys conducted every eight months, participants answered questions about changes in drinking habits and ownership of alcohol-branded merchandise.
The most commonly owned products were clothing and headwear, with followed by a wide array of items that included jewelry, key chains, shot glasses, posters and pens. Most of the brands were beer, including 45 percent that featured the Budweiser label.
Among teens that never drank alcohol, owning alcohol-branded merchandise and susceptibility to drinking were reciprocally related, with each predicting the other during an eight-month period.
In addition, owning alcohol-branded merchandise and having a susceptible attitude toward drinking predicted both the initiation of alcohol use and binge drinking, even after controlling for other risk factors.
"Alcohol-branded merchandise is widely distributed among U.S. adolescents, who obtain the items one-quarter of the time through direct purchase at retail outlets," the authors write. "The results also demonstrate a prospective relationship between alcohol-branded merchandise ownership and initiation of both alcohol use and binge drinking."
