Know Your Limits Campaign
An advertisement for the Know Your Limits cause.
Alcohol - Know Your Limits, launched in October 2006, is a health campaign that took place in the United Kingdom on a national level (Rapley, n.d.). It is a joint initiative and is funded by the British government, Department of health and home office. The health behavior that this health campaign is focusing on is to encourage people to stop binge drinking and to be a responsible drinker.
The main objective of this health campaign is to raise awareness of the risks associated with binge drinking by urging young drinkers to know their alcohol limits and to stay within them (Ranzetta, 2006; Rapley, n.d.). It is trying to educate the people to know their own limits when drinking alcohol and to drink within the recommended guidelines. The approach used by the campaign is an interesting one as it is not asking people to put off alcohol completely but to drink responsibly by staying within the recommended level. It sought to help people understand how many units are there in their alcoholic drinks and how to stay within the recommended amount of units (Department of Health [DH], n.d.). Unit is defined as the alcohol content in a drink and one unit typically contains 10ml or 8grams of pure alcohol (ethanol) (National Health Service [NHS], 2008). The recommended guideline for regular drinking is 2-3units a day for females and 3-4 units a day for males (DH, n.d.). The campaign also addresses other issues like health problems, personal safety, risk and vulnerability associated with large alcohol consumption (Rapley, n.d.; DH, n.d.). The message it is trying to spread to the public is “Too much alcohol makes you feel invincible when you are most vulnerable.” (Rapley, n.d.). It uses television advertisements, posters and a website to spread the intended message across to the people.
This health campaign is targeted at those aged 18-24 years old (Ranzetta, 2006). However, it also reaches out to younger and older audiences, (DH, 2007) especially younger and illegal drinkers (Ranzetta, 2006) and their parents.
A poster with information about the different types of alcohol.
It is not unusual for people nowadays to take time out to have a drink or two to relax and unwind and socialise with friends. However, the problem with alcohol is that sometimes a drink can very easily lead to another and before we know it, we might have drunk more than we intended. When one regularly drinks more than the recommended amount of units, there will be certain risks to it.
It has been found that UK teenagers have a high level of binge drinking. A total of 54% of the 2719 teenagers surveyed reported that they had at least binge drink once prior to 30days before the survey was conducted (West of England University, 2009). UK teen binge drinking is described as a serious and chronic problem as the numbers of binge drinkers are increasing. There is a need to educate young drinkers to think twice about the consequences of binge drinking for their health, their personal safety and their community (Home Office, 2008). Binge drinking has many negative consequences on our health. Short term effect of excessive drinking is alcohol poisoning while long term effects include brain damage, diseases in digestive system, heart problems, kidney damage, liver disease, psychological problem, sexual and hormonal dysfunctional, skeletal muscle damage (Health Promotion Board [HPB], 2009). A person who drinks excessively may also grow to depend or grow addicted to alcohol. Nearly 95% of adults who are dependent on alcohol started drinking before the age of 21 (HPB, 2009).
It is therefore important to start educating the people from young the negative effects of binge drinking. Binge drinking also contributes to accidents like drink driving, injuries and other high-risk behaviours like physical assaults and risky sexual behaviour, pregnancy and/child developmental problem and lower participation and involvement in daily activities due to the hangovers faced (NHS, 2008). Another need for this campaign is that alcoholic drinks are easily obtained nowadays. Underage drinkers can easily ask their peers or even their parents to buy the alcohol for them. Therefore by educating the people about the negative effects of binge drinking, they can then learn to drink responsibly within the recommended units (if they have to drink). There is also a need to educate parents that even though it is quite normal that their children are going out drinking, however a night out can rapidly become a tragedy (Rapley, n.d.). With this campaign, the government also hopes that other “at risk” groups can also benefits from a renewed focus on alcohol, including pregnant women and adults whose drinking levels may pose risks to their health (Ranzetta, 2006).
An interactive gadget to measure the amount of alcohol consumed
In our opinion, this health campaign is only successful to a certain extent. A year after the campaign was launched, a survey was carried out with the findings that 82% of the respondents recognized the advertisements when prompted and that the campaign makes them rethink the consequences of drinking too much. Most respondents are aware of the recommended guidelines of units but less than half are unsure of the number of units there are in their usual drinks (DH, 2007). Since most people do not know how many units there are in their drinks, how will they know whether they are drinking within the recommended guidelines? The government can focus more on educating the people on how to calculate and identify the amount of units in their usual drinks instead to solve this problem.
This health campaign has been faced with much skepticism from the people. One main criticism is that using binge drinking scare tactics, highlighting on the harm caused by drinking will not work. Advertising campaigns by drink manufacturers highlighting the fun nature of drinking alcohol had much more influence on young people as compared to those advertisements focusing on social warnings (Asthana & Campbell, 2008). In an example of the advertisements of the campaign, if one drinks beyond the recommended level, they will meet with a disaster like getting into a stranger’s car. However, most people do not believe this message as when they drink over the recommended limits, they still got home safely (Asthana & Campbell, 2008). It has also been found that most drinkers, especially young people, ignore the campaigns as they found that the recommended number of units were ‘unrealistically’ low (Asthana & Campbell, 2008). Another point to note is that to binge drink is to have 7 units and more for a woman and 11 units and more for a man (Asthana & Campbell, 2008). However, so many people are exceeding the recommended number of units when they drink. It is as if the government is categorizing everyone as a binge-drinker and so speaks to no one. People draw on their own experiences and most people just ignore the message. The government also fails to realize the fact that many people loves to get drunk from time to time (Asthana & Campbell, 2008). Instead of emphasizing on the number of units the people should drink as the guidelines are ‘so low’, the organizer can change their tactic of the campaign in a way that says “We know you are going to drink to get drunk, but make sure you do not do it very often”. Other than that, they may also help the people to plan a night out so that it is safe, or giving suggestions that one should drink some soft drinks in between alcoholic ones (Morris, 2008; Asthana & Campbell, 2008).
A witty poster for the Know Your Limits cause
According to the health belief model, to engage in a health behavior will depend on the one’s personal health threat and one’s perception that the health behavior will reduce this health threat (Taylor, 2009). Most people will not believe that binge drinking will have any negative effects because not all of them experience the “said” effects when they binged-drink. Therefore, they are not convinced that binge drinking actually has this harm. To discourage binge drinking and to encourage people to drink within the recommended number of units, they must first understand what the level of their personal health threat is when they binge drink. They must also have the perception that by not binge drinking, they are reducing the risks of health problems that they may face.
To conclude, the UK government can try changing their way of approach of the campaign in order to increase the success rate and to effectively curb the dangerous health behaviour.
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Click here to visit the website of Know Your Limits.