{"id":227174,"date":"2023-06-20T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-20T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/?post_type=bu-article&#038;p=227174"},"modified":"2023-06-20T10:17:03","modified_gmt":"2023-06-20T14:17:03","slug":"women-without-children-at-age-35-are-at-highest-risk-of-binge-drinking-alcohol-use-disorder","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/news\/articles\/2023\/women-without-children-at-age-35-are-at-highest-risk-of-binge-drinking-alcohol-use-disorder\/","title":{"rendered":"Women Without Children at Age 35 Are at Highest Risk of Binge Drinking, Alcohol Use Disorder"},"content":{"rendered":"\t<div class=\"wp-block-editorial-leadin sphnews-block-editorial-leadin is-style-text-over-image has-media has-box has-media-focus-center-middle has-text-position-x-right has-light-theme\">\n\t\t<div class=\"container-lockup\">\n\n\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-block-leadin-media\">\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<img width=\"2121\" height=\"1414\" src=\"\/sph\/files\/2023\/06\/alcohol-consumption.jpg\" class=\"\" alt=\"Woman&#039;s hand taking a photo of glasses of rose wine and cheese board with her smartphone on a picnic table\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/files\/2023\/06\/alcohol-consumption.jpg 2121w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/files\/2023\/06\/alcohol-consumption-636x424.jpg 636w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/files\/2023\/06\/alcohol-consumption-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/files\/2023\/06\/alcohol-consumption-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/files\/2023\/06\/alcohol-consumption-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/files\/2023\/06\/alcohol-consumption-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/files\/2023\/06\/alcohol-consumption-755x503.jpg 755w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/files\/2023\/06\/alcohol-consumption-1500x1000.jpg 1500w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/files\/2023\/06\/alcohol-consumption-900x600.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/files\/2023\/06\/alcohol-consumption-450x300.jpg 450w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/files\/2023\/06\/alcohol-consumption-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/files\/2023\/06\/alcohol-consumption-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/files\/2023\/06\/alcohol-consumption-1200x800.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2121px) 100vw, 2121px\" \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"container-words-outer\">\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"container-words-inner has-opacity-80\">\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"wp-prepress-tag\">alcohol\/substance use<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h1 class=\"head\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<strong>Women Without Children at Age 35\u00a0Are\u00a0at Highest Risk of Binge Drinking,\u00a0Alcohol Use Disorder<\/strong>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h4 class=\"deck\">A new study shows that newer generations of middle-aged women\u00a0are also more likely to engage in excessive\u00a0alcohol consumption, and that women without children are most at risk. The proportion of women in these at-risk groups is growing amid rampant marketing\u00a0and social media messaging that normalizes drinking\u00a0among reproductive-age women.\u00a0<\/h4>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar js-block-editorial-metabar sphnews-prepress-layout-metabar\">\n\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-date\">June 20, 2023<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-credits\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<ul data-credit-type=\"By\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/news\/authors\/jillian-mckoy\/\">Jillian McKoy<\/a><\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/ul>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-share js-bu-prepress-share-tools\">\n\t\t\t<span class=\"icon-twitter\"><span>Twitter<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"icon-facebook\"><span>Facebook<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"icon-action\"><\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\t\n\n\n<p>Excessive drinking&nbsp;and&nbsp;alcohol-related deaths are&nbsp;increasing&nbsp;at&nbsp;an&nbsp;alarming rate&nbsp;among women, particularly&nbsp;among&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/26331879\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reproductive-aged women<\/a> in their late 20\u2019s&nbsp;and 30\u2019s. Traditionally, women tend to reduce their alcohol consumption once they have children, but in recent years, more middle-aged women have delayed or skipped motherhood.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This growing trend in women who are delaying or foregoing parenting is contributing to&nbsp;an increase in women at highest risk for excessive alcohol use,&nbsp;according to&nbsp;a&nbsp;new study led by a School of Public Health researcher.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/add.16262\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Published in the journal&nbsp;<em>Addiction<\/em><\/a>,&nbsp;the study found that women who turned 35 in recent years, as well&nbsp;as&nbsp;women&nbsp;who have not had children by&nbsp;age 35,&nbsp;are&nbsp;the&nbsp;subgroups of women&nbsp;at highest risk of binge drinking&nbsp;and having&nbsp;alcohol use disorder (AUD) symptoms.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The study is the first to consider the impact of delayed&nbsp;parenting on excessive&nbsp;alcohol use&nbsp;among newer generations of middle-aged women.&nbsp;The findings underscore the need to&nbsp;address excessive drinking&nbsp;among&nbsp;all women, but particularly&nbsp;among this expanding group of women without children.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBecause more women are delaying having children in the US, a growing proportion of women fall into the highest risk group,\u201d says study lead author&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/profile\/rachel-adams\/\">Rachel Sayko Adams<\/a>, research associate professor of health law, policy &amp; management. \u201cThis growing prevalence of heavy drinking is exacerbated given that excessive alcohol use is increasing overall for middle-aged women in more recent cohorts. Therefore, at-risk alcohol use and consequences are expected to continue increasing in future years, if not addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Compared to men, the consequences among reproductive-age women who binge drink or develop AUD include&nbsp;an increased risk for liver disease,&nbsp;alcohol-related injuries,&nbsp;and breast cancer,along with sharper increases in alcohol-related mortality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the study, Adams and colleagues examined data from Monitoring the Future, an annual, ongoing survey of\u00a0high school students\u2019 substance use behaviors in the US. Nearly 10,000 self-identified women participants completed\u00a0a\u00a0survey\u00a0at\u00a0age 35 between 1993 and 2019, corresponding to high school senior years between 1976 to 2002.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The participants shared their parental status, age of first-time parenting, and whether they engaged in binge drinking (defined\u00a0as consuming four or more drinks in one setting) in the past two weeks, or developed\u00a0AUD symptoms in the past five years.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Women who turned 35 between 2018&nbsp;and 2019 were nearly 60 percent more likely to binge drink or report AUD symptoms than women who turned 35 between 1993 and 1997. The trend towards parenting at older ages was evident, as only 39 percent of women in the 2018-2019 cohort had children before age 30, compared to 54 percent of women in the 1993-1997 cohort.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The researchers cite several societal and cultural changes that are influencing these simultaneous increases in delayed parenting and excessive alcohol consumption among older women. Many women decide to postpone motherhood to pursue higher education and establish a career; the findings showed that the most recent group of 35-year-old women were nearly twice as likely to complete four years of college than the 35-year-olds in the 1990\u2019s.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The researchers state that one of the most significant drivers of unhealthy alcohol use among women today is the widespread acceptance and normalization of alcohol consumption in daily life in the US\u2014from social and professional settings, to casual drinking at home. Although the study shows that middle-aged women without children were at highest risk of unhealthy drinking, women with children were also at an increased risk, particularly in more recent cohorts.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This public embrace of alcohol may be influenced in part by social media-driven \u201cwine-mom\u201d culture, which encourages mothers to drink to cope with the challenges of motherhood and work, and for recreational enjoyment.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAlcohol industry messages around drinking for stress relief and enjoyment have always been part of the industry\u2019s advertising strategy, and we\u2019ve seen this emerge on social media platforms, particularly geared towards people who parent,\u201d says study senior author <a href=\"https:\/\/www.publichealth.columbia.edu\/profile\/katherine-m-keyes-phd\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Katherine Keyes<\/a>, professor of epidemiology at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. \u201cPromotion of alcohol use for moms to deal with the stresses of motherhood in Facebook and Instagram groups have common hashtags such as #winemom, #sendwine, and #mommyjuice. Simultaneously, there has been a rapid increase in alcohol products targeting middle-age women\u2014such as low-calorie seltzers, pink beverages, and expressions such as \u2018ros\u00e9 all day.\u2019\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Knowledge about how these cultural changes may be impacting women\u2019s drinking behaviors is very limited due to little&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S030646032100304X?via%3Dihub\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">research<\/a>, Adams says. \u201cYet, the potential consequences of \u201cwine mom\u201d culture may be that normalizing drinking to cope with the stresses of motherhood is risky. Studies have shown that drinking to cope with stress increases risk for AUD.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since excessive drinking is increasing for middle-aged women with and without children, it is critical for the public health community to develop approaches and interventions that appeal to all middle-age women, she says.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMore research is needed to understand the impacts that social media messages and groups targeting women have on women\u2019s drinking behaviors, as well as the role of alcohol products targeting women,\u201d says&nbsp;Adams.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is&nbsp;also important to continue monitoring trends in alcohol use.&nbsp;Alcohol-related deaths&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/news\/articles\/2022\/alcohol-causes-1-in-20-deaths-in-massachusetts\/\">increased<\/a> sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMore support for women who parent, such as facilitating social connections and increasing support for workplace mothers, may reduce drinking to cope with the stresses of motherhood,\u201d Adams says. \u201cEfforts should be made to improve access to AUD treatment for women and mothers, including addressing stigma, increasing women-focused treatment settings, and expanding flexible treatment options.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Excessive drinking&nbsp;and&nbsp;alcohol-related deaths are&nbsp;increasing&nbsp;at&nbsp;an&nbsp;alarming rate&nbsp;among women, particularly&nbsp;among&nbsp;reproductive-aged women in their late 20\u2019s&nbsp;and 30\u2019s. Traditionally, women tend to reduce their alcohol consumption once they have children, but in recent years, more middle-aged women have delayed or skipped motherhood.&nbsp; This growing trend in women who are delaying or foregoing parenting is contributing to&nbsp;an increase in women at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15205,"featured_media":227178,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"alcohol\/substance use","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":""},"tags":[1961,1736],"bu-publication":[3516],"sphnews-article-category":[3519,3531,3535,3540],"sphnews-topic":[],"bu_edition":[],"media_type":[],"profile_tax":[3997],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/227174"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15205"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227174"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/227174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":227307,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/227174\/revisions\/227307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227174"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=227174"},{"taxonomy":"sphnews-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sphnews-article-category?post=227174"},{"taxonomy":"sphnews-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sphnews-topic?post=227174"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=227174"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=227174"},{"taxonomy":"profile_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile_tax?post=227174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}