People don’t take drinking cues from elite athletes

Though the unruly behavior of inebriated sports stars may spark some righteous indignation (remember the hubbub about Canada’s women’s Olympic ice hockey team celebrating their gold on the ice?) and make for good tabloid headlines, when it comes to influencing fans’ own drinking habits, those alcohol-infused shenanigans have little impact. That’s the finding of new research published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Review, which indicate that professional sports stars drinking habits actually aren’t reflected in those of amateur athletes, and actually appear to deter drinking in non-athletes. Researchers from the U.K.’s University of Manchester and Australia’s University of Western Sydney asked more than 1,000 amateur and low-level professional athletes and non athletes how they perceived famous sports stars’ drinking habits. They also assessed the drinking habits of study participants using the World Health Organization Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test. Researchers found that stars’ drinking had little influence over less elite athletes, who were more likely to be swayed by peers and the drinking culture associated with many amateur sports leagues.

The researchers suggested that instead of taking cues from high-level pro sports stars, young athletes are far more influence by alcohol industry sponsorships. This past fall, Dr. Kerry O’Brien, a lead author of this latest study and a psychologist at the University of Manchester, argued for an outright ban of alcohol sponsorship of sports teams and events. And based on these latest findings, O’Brien says that sports oversight bodies tend to castigate individual athletes for drunken displays, but that criticism may be better directed elsewhere. While sports stars certainly should be encouraged to drink responsibly, O’Brien argues, it is alcohol sponsorship of sports that requires closer scrutiny and oversight.