If you took health class in high school, you've probably been told that it's not a good idea to drink on an empty stomach. But if you're like most college students around the country, you were probably too drunk to remember any of that. Instead, millennials have started to intentionally eat less before binge drinking in the hopes of getting a quicker buzz.
In a new study presented at the Research Society on Alcoholism's annual meeting this month, professors from the University of Houston discovered that a staggering 80 percent of students surveyed admitted to using dieting techniques to get drunk faster. The colloquial term for the practice is "drunkorexia," and its pretty damn dangerous.
"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," Dipali Rinker, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Houston and author of the study, said in a statement. "The consequences are worse than the consequences of not saving the calories.”
Drunkorexia includes behaviors like working out heavily before drinking, throwing up, and just plain not eating. The researchers surveyed 1,000 University of Houston students who had drank heavily in the past month, finding that 800 had participated in drunkorexia.
As far as the demographics go, students in fraternities and sororities were the heaviest users of the techniques, followed by students living in residence halls. And while both men and women were found to skip meals before drinking, women were more likely to engage in "bulimic-type behaviors" leading up to a night of partying.
"It is important to realize that, in addition to the amount and/or frequency of alcohol consumption, the manner in which college students drink puts them at greatest risk for experiencing problems," Rinker said. "Potential outcomes may include less inhibition that could lead to more negative alcohol-related consequences."