‘Drunkorexia’ pandemic sweeps US colleges

Source: the drinks business

by Steven Green

13th July, 2016

A new survey from the University of Houston’s psychology professor has suggested that alcohol governs modern life on campus.

Dipali Rinker, a public health professor at the University of Houston found that the term ‘drunkorexia’ is used in campuses across the country to describe students fasting, purging or otherwise altering their diets to make more room for alcohol so they can get drunk faster, according to NewsOK.

And worryingly, Rinker found that around 80% of students that partook in a heavy drinking session had engaged in some sort of ‘drunkorexia’ (via Inside Higher Ed).

However, the report also states that the report only relates to students that had engaged in binge drinking over the past month.

“These behaviors range all the way from vomiting, taking laxatives, and purging (arguably more severe) to eating low-calorie meals or drinking low-calorie alcoholic drinks (arguably less severe), before, during, or after drinking,” Rinker said.

“Long term, it’s not a good idea to skip nutritious meals in order to consume more calories from alcohol,” said Aaron White, the program director of college and underage drinking prevention at the NIAAA, to Inside Higher Ed in response to the study.

“Then there are the short-term consequences,” White added. “Having food in your stomach reduces peak blood alcohol levels about a third, so if you flip that, your peak level is significantly higher, increasing risk of blackouts, injuries and poor decisions. The consequences are worse than the consequences of not saving the calories.”