How to Assess the Drinking Habits of College Students

Introduction

College is a new atmosphere, an environment that is filled with teenagers going through new transitions. Incoming students are ready to experiment and desperate to fit in, making this group dangerously eager to satisfy their ego. The perception of binge drinking among college students is skewed to an extreme that provides an excuse for consuming excessive amounts of alcohol. It is important to understand variables that may affect understanding and decisions that leads to abusing alcohol. It is intended to present factors that can help prevent circumstances and situations that put students’ health at risk. The purpose of this study is to assess the drinking habits of college students.

This proposal endeavors to present possible risk factors that may lead to college students binge drinking and examine the extent of the ensuing health and behavioral problems that are created. It’s not easy for college students to turn down an offer of a beer or two or three or four and it continues. According to Wechsler et al. (1994), incoming students are more susceptible to peer pressure, the vulnerability of independence makes this adolescent group more likely to over consume beer and wine.

With a strong enthusiasm to be accepted, vulnerable feelings coming from being away from home, and being too far for their parent’s rules comes uncomfortable questions, leaving students with some serious decisions to make. Pressures from new friends and being in new environments make it hard to distinguish between too much and not enough. Difficult questions with potentially damaging consequences turn into automatic responses when social pressures and the desire for acceptance become factors. College students at all levels are faced with difficul...

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...ng the issue and making the issue more visible on college campuses may result in college communities to increase awareness on how to prevent it.

References ajph.aphapublications.org Chaloupka, F. J. and Weschler, H. (1996), Binge drinking in college: The impact of price, availability, and alcohol control polices. Contemporary Economic Policy, 14, 112–124

Glatter, R. (2014) Update On Binge Drinking Among College Students: From Bad To Worse.forbes.com simplesample.org Wechsler, H., Dowdall, G.H., Davenport, A., Castillo, S. (1994). Health and Behavioral consequences of binge drinking in college. The Journal of American Medical Association, 1672-1677.

Weizman, E.R., nelson, T.F., Weschler, H. (2003) Taking up binge drinking in college; the influences of person, social group and environment”, Journal of Adolescent Health, 32(1) 26-35

www.cdc.gov