Binge Drinking On America's Campuses

2193 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Negative impacts of alcohol

Binge Drinking on America's Campuses

On any Friday or Saturday night, the average college student is usually drinking, dancing and out having fun. They typically party with friends at fraternity parties, bars, and clubs; and unfortunately most of these students are underage, consuming excessive amounts of alcohol or 'Binge Drinking'. Binge drinking results in several detrimental outcomes, some are even fatal. Today this type of drinking is rampant on educational campuses everywhere. Large and small, urban and rural educational institutions are not left unaffected by this growing trend to binge drink.

Binge drinking is defined as "the consumption of five or more drinks, in a row, on at least one occasion" (NCADI). Several surveys announce that about 1/3rd of high school seniors and 42 percent of college students binge drink on a regular basis(NCADI). Figures such as these are extremely upsetting because one expects institutions of higher learning to be the breeding ground for new leaders and innovative thinkers. Unfortunately, these statistics only make educational campuses appear, as if, everything is a party, much like National Lampoon's Animal House. Animal House is a 1980's movie dedicated to displaying college life and the experience in a college fraternity; it

constantly depicted students binge drinking.

Harvard University's School of Public Health conducted a College Alcohol study, surveying students at more than 119 colleges. Of those surveyed, 44 percent admitted to having engaged in binge drinking at least once in the two weeks prior to the survey (Booze News). Researchers discovered that white students, age 23 or younger, and members of a fraternity or sorority, on average are more likely to binge drink (Booze News). They also noted that students who were binge drinkers in high school, were three times more likely to binge drink in college (Booze News). "The percentage of students who are binge drinkers is nearly uniform from freshman year to senior year, and over half of the binge drinkers were frequent binge drinkers" (Booze News).

Binge drinking has been associated with several alcohol-related problems. The Harvard survey also notes that "a higher percentage of binge drinkers than non-binge drinkers reported having experienced alcohol-related problems, since the beginning of the school year" (Booze News).

Frequent bing...

... middle of paper ...

....

http://www.health.org/govpubs/phd627/binge.htm

?Booze News Fact Sheet: BINGE DRINKING ON COLLEGE

CAMPUSES.? Booze News Newsletter. February

2,1999.

http://www.cspinet.org/booze/collfact.htm

Bormann, Carol A. and Stone, Michael H. ?The Effects

of Eliminating Alcohol in a College Stadium: The

Folsom Field Beer Ban(University of Colorado at

Boulder).? Journal of American College Health,

Sept 2001 v50 i2 p81.

Brick, John. ?Alcohol Poisoning.? A publication of

Intoxikon International. AOL Online.

http://members.aol.com/intoxikon/alcohol.poisoning.html

Buurma, Christine. ?U. Michigan student's death shows

risk of binge drinking.? The Cavalier Daily

Online Edition. November 16, 2000.

http://www.cavalierdaily.com/Cvarticle.asp?ID=6604&Date=11/16/2000&Keyword=binge+drinking

Durand, Maria F. ?A Major Turning Point: MIT Case

Causes Repercussions Throughout Nation.? ABC

News Online. September 18, 2000.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/mit000915.html

?Media Project Launched to Combat College Binge

Drinking.? Center for Science in the Public

Interest (CSPI). November 20, 1997.

http://www.cspinet.org/new/aluncorn.htm

Show More
Related

  • The Pressures Girls Face Within College Sororities

    1417 Words  | 3 Pages

    Scrivo, K. (1998, March 20). Drinking on campus. CQ Researcher, 8, 241-264. Retrieved from http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Getting Serious On Eradicating Binge Drinking

    1262 Words  | 3 Pages

    Binge drinking is portrayed as a common activity on college campuses. In reality only 43% of students interviewed from a pool of 14,500 said they had binged in the past two weeks; which is less than a majority. If less than

    Read More

  • Observation Field Notes On Behavior

    2624 Words  | 6 Pages

    Secondly, observing people binge drinking was the moist difficult. Because the definition I used for binge drinking was “Drinking 5 or more alcoholic drinks, on the same occasion, on at least 1 day in the past 30 days (NIH),” it was quite difficult to find people drinking that much in only an hour. Furthermore, I could not determine the amount of drinks consumed by those who were already at the bar prior to my arrival. With that being said, I decided to observe people and their surrounding while consuming alcohol and not worry about binge drinking.

    Read More

  • College Students and Their Lives of Drinking

    3787 Words  | 8 Pages

    “80 percent of teen-agers have tried alcohol, and that alcohol was a contributing factor in the top three causes of death among teens: accidents, homicide and suicide” (Underage, CNN.com pg 3). Students may use drinking as a form of socializing, but is it really as good as it seems? The tradition of drinking has developed into a kind of “culture” fixed in every level of the college student environment. Customs handed down through generations of college drinkers reinforce students' expectation that alcohol is a necessary ingredient for social success. These perceptions of drinking are the going to ruin the lives of the students because it will lead to the development alcoholism. College students who drink a lot, while in a college environment, will damage themselves mentally, physically, and socially later in life, because alcohol adversely affects the brain, the liver, and the drinkers behavior.

    Read More

  • College Students and Alcohol

    1142 Words  | 3 Pages

    College student drunkenness is far from new and neither are college and university efforts to control it. What is new, however, is the potential to make real progress on this age-old problem based on scientific research results. New research-based information about the consequences of high-risk college drinking and how to reduce it can empower colleges and universities, communities, and other interested organizations to take effective action. Hazardous drinking among college students is a widespread problem that occurs on campuses of all sizes and geographic locations. A recent survey of college students conducted by the Harvard University School of Public Health reported that 44 percent of respondents had drunk more than five drinks (four for women) consecutively in the previous two weeks. About 23 percent had had three or more such episodes during that time. The causes of this problem are the fact that students are living by themselves no longer with parents or guardians; they earn their own money; students need to be a part of a group, be accepted; and they have the wrong idea that to feel drunk is “cool.”

    Read More

  • Lowering the Drinking Age

    1790 Words  | 4 Pages

    Lily, Henrietta M. and Harmon, Daniel E. Alcohol Abuse and Binge Drinking. New York: the Rosen Publishing Group Inc., 2012. Print.

    Read More

  • We Must Reduce Underage Drinking and Driving in College

    2481 Words  | 5 Pages

    Many temptations are faced in college culture and one of them is underage drinking and driving. Underage drinking and driving has essentially become an epidemic, rapidly developing among today’s youth. College culture has come to encourage drinking and driving through the places and people that surround the students (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, October 2002). Some people don’t see underage drinking as an issue, when in fact it is a huge issue that every teenager will face. Since underage drinking is illegal people want to rebel by drinking; additionally, alcohol is really easy to get ahold of in college. Since many students are going to drink, the first line of defense is to educate students about the effects of alcohol and what can happen if students do drink and drive. Unless we are able to put a stop to underage drinking and driving through education, and a system called smart start the problem wont get any better.

    Read More

  • Lowering the Drinking Age to 18

    2613 Words  | 6 Pages

    were drinking to get drunk than their counterparts a decade earlier, and one recent study reported an increase, just since 1994, in the number of students who drink deliberately to get drunk? (Smith 1). I interviewed my friend Shelly Mitchell who recently turned twenty-one and asked her how she felt about finally being legal to drink. She quoted, ?It is not as exciting to drink anymore, I mean I still like to go out with my friends to bars, but the fun is all over, in high school and college it was so exciting trying to get alcohol by using a fake ID.? All of these factors could be changed by lowering the drinking age to eighteen. In a study done by the Harvard School of Public Health, binge drinking is defined as five drinks in a row for boys and four drinks for girls. And when they did a survey they found that 44% of the students attending Harvard binge drink (Jeffrey Kluger 1).

    Read More

  • Binge Drinking Among College Students

    446 Words  | 1 Pages

    Binge drinkers miss class, get behind on school work, engage in unplanned sexual activity, have run-ins with police, and get injured or hurt.

    Read More

  • College Drinking

    697 Words  | 2 Pages

    In recent studies by U.S News and World Report, college campuses are turning off the tap. In other words banning alcohol entirely. One of the reasons for the banning of alcohol on campus is due to the outstanding reports of alcohol related incidents that have taken the lives of students. September of 97’, Scott Krueger, and eighteen-year-old freshman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, died from alcohol poisoning while at a Phi Gamma Delta initiation event.(Reisberg, 1) The lack of action taken by MIT caused the students’ parents to sue them for their irresponsibility.(Reisberg, 2) Another accident that occurred due to alcohol was to a twenty-year-old Louisiana State University student named Benjamin Wynne. Wynne had apparen...

    Read More

  • A Reflection On College Drinking

    1795 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the past few months I have learned a lot about myself. When the incident first occurred I was very angry. I know plenty of people that drink that are under age and they don’t get caught. I kept asking myself why me? At first I was hesitant to change, but the last few months have been eye opening. I have definitely used this situation to my advantage. There are so many things that I have learned about myself. I have used these last few months to really evaluate my life and set new goals for myself. I think this experience has greatly affected my life in more ways then one. I have done many things to change my life. I have seen changes in my personal life regarding my family and my friends. Many people talk about life changing experiences and how it affects them. I think that my life has changed for the good because of this incident. I’m glad that I have used this negative incident to better my life and to change the fate of my future.

    Read More

  • Alcohol Consumption in College

    3550 Words  | 8 Pages

    student may not attend class the day after drinking because he or she may be

    Read More

  • Don't lower the drinking Age

    1218 Words  | 3 Pages

    Weshler, Henry, and Wuethrich, Bernice. Dying to Drink: Confronting Binge Drinking on college campuses. Chicago: Rodale Inc., 2002. Print.

    Read More

  • binge drinking

    1004 Words  | 3 Pages

    Wechsler, Henry and Kuo, Meichun. College Students Define Binge Drinking and Estimate Its Prevalence: Results of a National Survey. EBSCO Publishing 29 Oct. 2000

    Read More

  • Alcohol Abuse Among College Students and Possible Solutions

    2195 Words  | 5 Pages

    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 accepted.

    Read More

More about Binge Drinking On America's Campuses

Open Document