Health Risk of Binge Drinking in College

The Harvard School of Public HealthÆs College Alcohol Study (CAS) has become a standard of alcohol consumption research. The Harvard CAS defined binge drinking as consumption of five or more drinks at one time. The CAS has been conducted four times (1993, 1997, 1999 and 2001) and demonstrates that the percentage of binge drinkers has remained steady at 40% to 45% over the past decade (Keeling, 2002, 197). In other words, approximately half of AmericaÆs college students admit to binge drinking. While the frequency of binge drinking and the number of drinks consumed by binge drinkers varies, one factor does not. Binge drinking causes the most harm associated with alcohol use on campuses, in studentÆs lives and in college communities. Bing drinking and alcohol abuse are associated with a vari

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re on equal terms with men when they can consume alcohol to the same degree. This puts women at greater risk for alcohol poisoning and other deleterious effects of alcohol use, since women are smaller and need less alcohol to become intoxicated than males. The fact that women are now considered the equals of men has also contributed to such behaviors in female college students. As Jersild (2002) argues, ôThe downside of changing gender norms seems to be that the convention of moderation in drinking among women is disappearingö (B10). There is a mountain of evidence in the literature that binge drinking is responsible for most of the alcohol-related harms that come from drinking. Wechsler and Nelson (2001) conducted a study on thousands of college students across the nation, using binge drinkers and non-binge drinkers to determine the difference in alcohol-related problems between the two groups. The results of their findings are listed in the table below and adequately demonstrate that binge drinkers are significantly more likely to experience alcohol-related problems than non-binge drinkers: Problem Non-Binge Binge Drinkers Miss a class 30.9 62.5 Behind in schoolwork 26.0 46.3 Do something you regret 39.6
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Approximate Word count = 1325
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)