Dutch adults drink non-alcoholic drinks, especially in addition to alcoholic drinks

14 February 2024

Dutch people often drink non-alcoholic drinks. For example, 15% of young people drink non-alcoholic drinks monthly (2021), among adults this is 16% (2022). For most adults, non-alcoholic drinks are not a complete replacement for alcoholic drinks, they drink both non-alcoholic drinks and alcoholic drinks.

Drinking non-alcoholic drinks and alcoholic drinks are strongly related. Adults who drink more than one glass per day (therefor more than the official Health Council guideline for alcoholic drinks) also drink non-alcoholic drinks more often. It seems that non-alcoholic drinks are mainly consumed as a supplement to alcohol.

More than half of adults indicate that they experience a positive effect from non-alcoholic drinks. A positive effect means drinking less or no alcohol by drinking non-alcoholic drinks. Heavy drinkers report this less often than non-heavy drinkers. No correlation was found for other types of drinkers.

Boys 12 to 16 drink non-alcoholic drinks more often than girls of that age. As young people get older, they start consuming more non-alcoholic drinks. Use peaks at the age of 14.

Male adults consume non-alcoholic drinks more often than women. Young adults and people over 75 drink non-alcoholic drinks less often than adults of other ages.

Source: trimbos.nl.

factsheet-alcoholvrije-dranken_1.pdf (1,97 MB)

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