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Danish Drinking Culture

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Generation Fucked Up – Danish Drinking Culture.
Alcohol consumption is a large part of many cultures, from celebrations at coming-of-age ceremonies to wishing good health on one’s friends. Denmark is a country which does not sway from this notion in the slightest. Denmark, a part of the notoriously-drunk Scandinavian countries, is facing a crisis: Generation Fucked Up. Generation Fucked Up refers to the Danish adolescents, who, heavy with a culture of binge drinking, are spiralling out of control.
Who is responsible? Why is it so? And what can we do to stop it.
Binge drinking is a concept that is concerning parents in not only Scandinavia, but worldwide. Binge drinking is when people, often young people, go out and consume alcohol at alarmingly high levels, often enough to be hospitalised. This is most prevalent in teenagers. In most parts of the world, it is forbidden to consume alcohol at all until ages 18-21. But in Scandinavian countries, this is not the case. The students of the Norwegian schools are given venues within their institution to consume alcohol. The Swedish teens are sufferers of the Swedish ‘4-day-hangover’ after every weekend and public holiday. And Denmark tops them off with not only the most lax access to alcohol for teenagers, but the highest alcohol consumption, for teenagers, in the world. According to the World Health Organization, the Danish teens are drinking 11.3L of pure alcohol every year.
The Danish adults, however, are not as severe. Whilst still on the high end of the scale, the Danish adults have lost the #1 ranking for alcohol consumption worldwide, dropping down to number 16. So why are the teens drinking so much?
The answer lies in a survey conducted by Mette Grønkjær, a PhD student for the International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Wellbeing. She writes in her abstract: “Five focus group interviews were

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