Chief Medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson said unprotected sex and a lack of exercise were also putting them in peril. He also suggested that young drivers should be banned from drinking any alcohol at all before they get behind the wheel.

Sir Liam Donaldson called on ministers to set a zero alcohol limit for drivers aged between 17 and 20. The Chief Medical officer called on doctors to focus on teen health at the launch of his annual report on the state of the nation's health.

The report revealed that more than a third of 11 to 15-year-old regularly get drunk, almost ten per cent smoke and half are couch potatoes. Some 300,000 are classed as obese and 170,000 have taken class A drugs.

"The problem is we have tended to look at the health of teenagers in isolated strands," Donaldson was quoted as saying by The Sun.

"Adolescence can be a challenging time. It's a period in which teenagers encounter risks and make hard choices. Young people are exposed to behaviours, opportunities and products that have the capacity to harm their health in the short and long term," he said.

"Habits adopted in the teenage years can form behaviour for a lifetime for example, adolescent binge drinkers are twice as likely to be dependent on alcohol or taking illicit drugs by the time they reach 30," Donaldson said