Alcool : les jeunes savent pourquoi?
(2012) Louvain médical — Vol. 131, n° 8, p. 467-471 (2012)
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- Our drug culture favors alcohol over any other drug. It has a special place in our society, where it enjoys a very positive image. It is also regularly subjected to excesses due to peer pressure, risk taking, the ubiquity of a positive image of drunkenness, etc., especially among young people. This is linked to the development of the alcoholic beverage market, the widening of the range of alcoholic products and new forms of commercial communication - increasingly aggressive and insidious practices that establish a true culture of alcohol abuse, aimed more specifically at women and youth. Everyone's free will is guided by the ability of prefrontal and frontal lobes to inhibit the responses of our primitive brain. This allows to compare the received and perceived messages with elements of our memory, which, in turn, causes inhibition of the emotional response and guides our intention to buy or not, depending on our needs and arguments. Like it or not, we are all influenced by advertising. But children and young people, whose frontal and prefrontal lobes are still immature, show increased difficulty in processing a message carefully, in understanding its persuasive intent, in distinguishing an advertisement from a game or an information, and in arguing against it. Understanding of advertising's function is especially dependent on perceptive abilities and age. Marketing and promotional practices are undeniably part of the contextual factors that have an important influence on our perceptions and behaviors as consumers; regulating these practices therefore makes a lot of sense. However, Belgium has always favored self-regulation of the advertising market. Today, this approach shows all its limitations. Among other things, the proposed solution would be to legislate on business practices and to regulate advertising through a Federal Council for Advertising, a public and independent institution whose activities would indirectly put pressure on the producers.
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De Duve, M. (2012). Alcool : les jeunes savent pourquoi? Louvain médical, 131(8), 467-471. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/85533 (Original work published 2012)