Over one in five Britons teetotal, never touching alcohol

Alcohol is consumed by 29 million people in Britain, almost 60 percent of the country's adult population, a report by the Britain's Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed Wednesday.

But the number of drinkers is the lowest since ONS launched its annual lifestyle surveys, the in 2005 when more than 64 percent of adults admitted to drinking alcohol.

The report also shows that in 2016 more than one-in-five people, around 10.6 million men and women, were described as teetotalers, consuming no alcohol at all.

At the other extreme, 7.8 million people admitted they "binged" on alcohol on their heaviest drinking day.

It revealed that 9.6 percent of adults in Britain, almost 5 million men and women, drank alcohol on 5 or more days each week.

The ONS study found young people in Britain aged 16 to 24 years are less likely to drink than any other age group, but when they do drink, consumption on their heaviest drinking day tends to be higher than other ages.

Statisticians at ONS believe this could be due to younger people binge drinking on their weekend nights out on Fridays and Saturdays, and not drinking on weekdays.

Britain's highest earners, those earning 40,000 pounds a year and above, are more likely to be frequent drinkers and "binge" on their heaviest drinking day when compared with the lowest wage earners, said ONS.

Similar patterns of drinking have been observed in England, Scotland and Wales, while in England binge drinking is more common in northern regions.

Among men who "binged" alcohol, normal strength beer was the most popular choice of alcohol, while wine was the most popular choice among women drinkers.

Men were more likely to be drinkers than women, accounting for almost 63 percent of the male population, while 51.3 percent of women consumed alcohol.

Men were also more likely to be binge drinkers than women, with 28.2 percent of males stating they exceeded 8 units of alcohol on their heaviest day, compared to 25.3 percent of females who exceeded 6 units of alcohol.

Across the country, the highest number of alcohol drinkers is in England's south west region where just over 70 percent consume alcohol.

The lowest level of drinkers is London, with 47 percent of the population in the capital saying they had consumed alcohol in the week when the snapshot of drinking habits was taken.

ONS said their 2016 report shows that since 2005, there has been a two-percent increase in the number of people stating that they do not drink alcohol at all.

The drinking behavior of teetotalers was likely to be impacted by characteristics of local populations, such as culture and ethnicity, said ONS. Endit