Erasmus students adopt Danish drinking habits

20/11-09 kl. 06:00 Culture
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International students in Copenhagen drink more than they do at home

by Carina Elkott

Erasmus life in Copenhagen is a social whirl of parties, cheap beer at Studenterhuset and, well, more parties.

This is the stereotype of international students that the University Post set out to test, with a small, unscientific, survey on University of Copenhagen Erasmus students’ drinking habits.

No big surprises here.

International students do indeed adjust rapidly to the relaxed Danish attitude to alcohol. On average, the international students in our survey drink 11.8 alcohol units a week.

See the article Stop before five, say health experts here.

No parental control

A report by Statistics Denmark on the consumption of alcohol in Denmark in 2008 shows that Danes between 21 and 30 years drink 8.9 alcohol units a week, while the amount for students is 10.2 alcohol units.

Studies show that Denmark’s young generation drink more and more often than their youngsters in the rest of Europe. Internationals coming to Denmark live up to these statistics.

»I drink much more alcohol in Denmark than in Spain. It is because I have more free time here and I am not under control of my parents. All my friends here do it, and with alcohol I enjoy the night even more,« Gabriel López explains.

Part of Erasmus life

The male students in the survey drink more than the girls, but common to them all is that most drink more during their stay here than they typically do at home.

»In Spain I don’t drink as much. I hang out with friends back home without drinking alcohol, but here I drink when I am with my friends here. It is just a part of Erasmus life,« says Spanish Daniel Martin, aged 20.

A friend of Daniel’s, Charlotte Derudet from France, agrees with him. It depends on who you hang out with. If they drink, you drink:

»I only drink, when I go out. But I just go out more often here than back home. Here I party almost every weekend,« says Charlotte Derudet.

uni-avisen@adm.ku.dk

1 comment

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20/11-09 kl. 11:52 Anonymous:

Nothing to adopt, really...

If "relaxed Danish attitude to alcohol" means drinking beer every weekend at the party or while going out with friends then I would rather say that we drink less while here...

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Facts

What is a unit?
A unit of alcohol is defined as 12g or 15 ml of pure alcohol, which is roughly equal to a glass of wine or a small beer.

Danes are heavy drinkers
The EU is the heaviest drinking region of the world, with each adult drinking 11 litres of pure alcohol each year (World Health Organisation 2004).

Denmark is one of the heavier drinking of the EU nations.

For students, what matters is binge drinking, or drinking in intensive bouts of five or more beverages in one session.

A 2006 study showed the Irish to be the binge champions, followed by the Finns, Brits and Danes.

Italians and Greeks, on the other hand, tend to stay relatively sober.

How did we do our survey?
The University Post asked 20 students what their alcohol consumption had been over the course of the last week.

Half of the respondents were found at the Studenterhuset, (probably not a representative sample) the other half through the Erasmus mentor network.

This gave an average of 11.8 units per week.

As a control, we then e-mailed 20 students in the Erasmus Student Network.

Our eight responses showed an average of 13 units per week, but with large individual variations.

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