Slack parenting will just damage children’s health

And the biggest teen drinkers are the most secretive about their use of alcohol.

Researchers from Glasgow University and Queen’s University Belfast analysed data from 4,937 young people studied between 2000 and 2011 and came to the conclusion that the determining factor in alcohol use is the level of control exercised by parents.

Dr Mark McCann, from Glasgow University, says the role of parents in determining alcohol behaviour is “consistently important” and adds: “We are hypothesising that while emotional support and closeness are important for ensuring mental wellbeing, when it comes to health behaviours like alcohol use, parental rules may have more of an influence over factors outside the home such as peer influences and social media.”

It’s all about saying no, isn’t it?

And not being afraid of incurring the wrath of your teenager by sticking to your guns. It’s so easy to give in when they say things like, “But X is allowed to do that. Why can’t I?” and then slamming the door behind them in a temper when the answer is no.

My husband and I feel like the meanest parents in the world. And I do sympathise with my teens when they consistently plead for a Playstation (never), an Xbox (never) or an iPad (never).

But always at the back of my mind is the thought: what are the short-term and long-term consequences for them?

With electronic media, it’s significant parts of their life wasted playing pointless games for hours on end alone in their rooms.

Yes, an hour every now and then is OK, obviously (I’m not completely anti-fun), but the potential consequences of excessive use are becoming more and more clear: loneliness, addiction, obesity and many other health and psychological problems.

So, as parents, my husband and I believe that by not allowing Playstations, Xboxes and iPads in the house, it not only gives our children the message that we will not provide the means for them to do something we disapprove of but also that we are in charge, in our house, as parents and as adults.

We tell them that old-fashioned parental cliché: that it’s for their own good.

And we get back the typical teenage response that they don’t care about the long-term benefit, they just want a Playstation. We ignore them.

The same applies to alcohol. There’s a persistent belief that if parents introduce their children to alcohol when they are young, as the French do, they will become used to it and not abuse alcohol as adults.

But we all know the long-term health and psychological damage alcohol can cause, and children still have developing bodies and brains.

Surely, by giving alcohol to children as they are still growing, it just gives them an early taste for it.

Children and teenagers are too young to adequately police themselves over their alcohol intake, while parents retreat from their responsibilities by offering no boundaries to curb their behaviour.

Of course teenagers are curious about alcohol and are always tempted to try new things. But it should be against a background of clear parental rules setting out an age limit and circumstances for drinking alcohol so that their children know the rules and understand when they are breaking them.

Parental disapproval is absolutely vital because they know better than their children, and I see my role as a mother to stop my children from doings things that I know will damage them.

I find it hard to understand any parent who not only encourages their child to drink alcohol at an early age but also to become a teenage binge-drinker because it’s cool.

If you don’t have time for health, you need to eventually make time for disease.

This striking quote is from nutritional therapist Amelia Freer, the author of Cook.Nourish.Glow., and it’s her advice for convenience food fans who say they don’t have time to cook from scratch.

Amelia turned her lifestyle around after she survived on a diet of pre-prepared food and sugary tea while working as Prince Charles’s personal assistant and was plagued by IBS and acne.

When she eventually quit her job, she enrolled on a four-year nutrition course, which changed her life.

“As humans, we tend to make do and put up with bad health; you get used to it, as opposed to saying, ‘No, I deserve to feel excellent, I deserve to have optimum health’,” she says.

She speaks truths bluntly – and her articulation of the big picture of our First World binge-eating should make us all look to the future and think twice about what most of us consume most of our lives.