Effects Of Binge Drinking On College Campuses

As many teenagers enter college, they begin to experiment with many things. Although not all students participate in underage drinking, it is evident that a vast majority do. Drinking is not the problem. The main problem occurs when students resort to binge drinking. In the

Binge drinking is considered to be a health problem because nearly half of all college students have reported to drink more than 5 drinks is a short period of time (Hennessee, 2013). There has been about 1,825 college students who have died from alcohol-related injuries such as motor-vehicle crashes with the students being between 18 - 24 years old (College Drinking Fact Sheet, 2015). An increase of 6% of college deaths has occurred due to binge breaking increasing the total amount from 1,600 to 1,700 (Hingson, Heeren, & Wechsler, n.d.).

“According to the CDC, about 90% of all teen alcohol consumption occurs in the form of Binge Drinking, which experts say peaks at the age of nineteen.” (qtd by Listfield). Binge Drinking is the consumption of excessive amounts of alcohol in a short period of time. The author, Emily Listfield, defines that the standard alcohol consumption over a two hour period is considered to be four beers for women and five beers for men. This has become a great distraction for college students nationwide and a major dilemma on college campuses. Nearly two hundred thousand students visit emergency rooms each year due to the abuse of alcohol, and more than one thousand seven hundred students die. In the article “ The Underage Drinking Epidemic”, Listfield identifies the problems that underage drinking can cause, the dangers that could happen, and four solutions on what parents can do to keep their kids from binge drinking.

First of all, binge drinking has been a problem for some time now. It has climbed over the past few years, capturing more attention from the media. A study

What do failing grades, frequent memory lapses, fights, brutal hangovers and unplanned sexual activity all have in common? They are all frequent results of binge drinking by college students. On a typical Friday or Saturday night you can find the average college student out drinking and having fun. Normally partying with friends at a party, bar, or club; most of these college students are underage consuming excessive amounts of alcohol, or as its better known, “binge drinking.”The term binge drinking is defined as the consumption of five or more drinks in a row by men and four or more drinks in a row by women, at least once in a two week period. “One” drink is defined as 12 ounces of beer, 4 ounces of wine, or one shot of liquor. Alcohol

techprogram/paper_40822.htm)." Some other effects that can happen from drinking is that students get in trouble with police, vandalism, get injured, or even worse, death. Over 1,400 students are killed annually because of their alcohol use, according to researchers at the Boston University School of Public Health. This survey also claims that over 600,000 students a year are assaulted by other students who have been drinking. Additionally, over 70,000 are the victims of sex assaults or date rapes in similar circumstances. These are very disturbing figures. Thirty-one percent of college students met criteria for a diagnosis of alcohol abuse and 6 percent for a diagnosis of alcohol dependence in the past 12 months, according to questionnaire-based self-reports about their drinking. Drinking heavily seems to bring out more difficulties in a person's life and can only continue the same way as an adult. One starts to rely on alcohol to solve problems and may continue throughout their life because their body becomes dependent on alcohol to make them feel good again.

Those that participate in binge drinking do it for many different reasons, a bad test grade, roommate arguments, celebration for a job well done, peer pressure, or simply because it is the weekend. No one is saying that it is wrong to go out and have a few drinks but when students go out and just drink to get drunk, actions must be taken to stop such activity. According to the graph on the next page done by the Harvard Public School of Health it is clear that a majority of students drink to simply get wasted. [Colorado State University 1] The number of binge drinkers may not have gone up in 1999 compared to 1997, for every five students two are binge drinkers, or 44%. [Wechsler #2, 1] However, the intensity of drinking has increased, when students are going out they are having more to drink. [Wechsler #2, 2]

Due to the accepting collegiate culture of drinking college students will often overindulge or binge drink. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism defines binge drinking as, “four drinks for women and five drinks for men in about two hours.” What many college students do not realize while they are out at a party drinking is that this type of behavior is extremely dangerous and can cause alcohol poisoning which if untreated can potentially lead to death. The United States Government’s College Drinking Prevention website stated that, “a recent study estimates more than 1,400 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 die each year form alcohol-related injuries, and 500,000 students sustain alcohol-related injuries each

Research has supported the observation that young people in America consume alcohol regularly; this prevalence of use increases rapidly during adolescence, as well as a few years afterward (Wagenaar and Wolfson 37). This has come to be a problem among college students. It has been shown through extensive quantitative and qualitative research that those under twenty-one years of age are able to obtain alcohol, which allows them to binge drink. Binge drinking holds many problems for college students: alcohol poisoning, DUIs, traffic accidents, and even fatalities.

Binge or excessive drinking is the most serious problem affecting social life, health, and education on college campuses today. Binge or excessive drinking by college students has become a social phenomena in which college students do not acknowledge the health risks that are involved with their excessive drinking habits. Furthermore college students do not know enough about alcohol in general and what exactly it does to the body or they do not pay attention to the information given to them. There needs to be a complete saturation on the campus and surrounding areas, including businesses and the media, expressing how excessive drinking is not attractive and not socially

Alcohol abuse and drugs on college campus were not new, it became a big concern in the United States during the 1980s (Blume, n.d.). Although some widely publicized studies from the late 1980s and early 1990s indicated that student drinking was at an all-time high, threatening students' health and academic careers, others indicated that the problem of student drinking

Binge drinking is defined by the Center for Disease Control (2017) as “5 or more alcoholic drinks for males or 4 or more alcoholic drinks for females on the same occasion” Our team believes that this matter is something that we could address within our own community at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. In this paper, we will provide supporting evidence that binge drinking is indeed a problem on our college campus. Next, we will propose an intervention to help reduce incidence and provide support for those individuals that are affected by binge drinking. We will then explore the rationale behind our intervention and how it might work to benefit those afflicted. Finally, we will explore how we can evaluate the success or failure of said intervention.

Alcohol use among college students has always been a popular subject among teachers, parents, researchers, and even students. The actual act of drinking alcohol is not necessarily the problem, whether legal or not. The main problem is the act of binge drinking of college students, of age or not. Drinking modest amounts of alcohol may have some consequences, but binge drinking has more negative consequences than normal modest drinking. There are many examples as to the consequences that binge drinking can cause to college student’s lives, but one of the main consequences that students face as a result of frequent drinking is poor academic final grades.

The focus of this paper is to get a better understanding of the relationship between binge drinking and college students on many college campuses this seem to be an issue that does not receive a lot of attention. It appears that cases dealing with this topic does not be address by the term ‘binge drinking’ instead media and society uses the term ‘alcohol consumption’. Since there are two different terms usage this is what makes limited resources on this topic.

Students in college who drink heavily may have several consequences throughout their years in school. Some of these consequences include absences, bad grades, health issues, loss of friends, and sometimes even dropping out of school. There is also research out there that clearly shows heavy alcohol use by college students is associated with a high-risk sexual behavior. Alcohol impairs the process in which information travels to the brain, and heightens sexual arousal. Students who drink excessively are up to three times more likely to have multiple sexual partners in the past couple months than those who drink responsibly and moderately. On top of that, there is data that shows alcohol and physical and sexual