Brit teenage girls are Europe's biggest binge drinkers: Report

London, July 2(ANI): Teenage British girls are the biggest binge drinkers in the whole of Europe as more than half of 15-year-olds drink to excess at least once a month, according to a report by drawn up by UK's Department of Health.

More than half of girls aged 15 and 16 say they drink to excess at least once a month, and the shocking figure also means the UK is one of the few countries where the girls binge-drink more than boys.

The paper, drawn up by the Department of Health (DoH), also revealed that the devastating effects of drink cost the UK economy more than 21billion pounds a year.

The National Health Scheme now spends 3.5 billion pounds a year dealing with drink, which is a rise of 30 per cent in just three years.

The 33-page submission cites a 2007 report of the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and other Drugs, which questioned children across the continent on how much they drink.

"The UK is consistently in the top five European countries for binge drinking and drunkenness among school children," The Daily Mail quoted a DoH submission, as saying.

In the research, overall British children aged 15 and 16 were the fifth most likely in Europe to have had a binge-drinking episode, defined as having had five or more drinks on at least one occasion in the previous month.

However, among girls aged 15 and 16, Britain comes out worst with 55 per cent of girls saying they had drunk to excess over the month, the worst figure in Europe.

Among boys, the figure is 52 per cent. For boys and girls overall, the UK is behind only Malta, Portugal, Estonia and Latvia. (ANI)