| Alcohol units campaign launched |
19 May 2008 @14:24:46 |
A new ‘Units’ campaign which aims to tell drinkers how many units are in their drinks and help them stick to their limits was launched today by Public Health Minister Dawn Primarolo.
The Know Your Limits campaign – the biggest alcohol awareness campaign to date – kicks off its units strand with a series of adverts on TV, radio, billboards and in press, depicting the number of units in individual drinks. The Units campaign has an overall budget of £6 million for 2008/09. It will be followed by a £4 million binge-drinking campaign from the Home Office next month.
The units campaign uses iconic imagery to help people understand how many units are in typical alcoholic drinks, and how to stay within the recommended daily guidelines for regular drinking of 2-3 units a day for women, and 3-4 units a day for men. The campaign will also warn people about how regularly drinking too much can damage their health.
New YouGov poll results out today show that English drinkers don’t know exactly how much they are drinking. More than four out of five (82 per cent) claim to know what a unit of alcohol is, yet 77 per cent don’t know how many units are in a typical large glass of wine.
More than half (55 per cent) of those questioned thought a large glass of wine (ABV 12 per cent) would contain two units, when it actually contains three. More than a third (35 per cent) did not know that an average pint of beer (ABV 4 per cent) contains two units, while nearly three out of five (58 per cent) did not know a double gin and tonic also contains two units.
Imogen Shillito, Director of Information and Education, said: "The British Liver Trust supports the campaign to raise awareness of alcohol units. It is essential to help people understand the alcohol content of their drinks if they are to make good choices that will protect their health. A range of drinks have increased their alcohol by volume (abv) over the years or increased their serving size, which can be confusing for consumers. We believe further action is needed to ensure alcoholic drinks display appropriate health warnings but are pleased to see that the government is moving forward on protecting people from the health harm from alcohol.”
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