New concern on college campuses: ‘drunkorexia,’ a combination drinking and eating disorder

(The Washington Post, March 11) Unfortunately, campus authorities and researchers are reporting a practice that turns the full-stomach drinking strategy on its head: Rather than filling up before a night of partying, significant numbers of students refuse to eat all day before consuming alcohol.

This is a high-risk behavior colloquially called “drunkorexia,” which is one part eating disorder, one part alcoholism — a very dangerous combination for college-age students. The term drunkorexia, which can also include excessive exercise or purging before consuming alcohol, was coined about 10 years ago, and it started showing up in medical research around 2012. Drunkorexia addresses the need to be the life of the party while staying extremely thin, pointing to a flawed mind-set about body image and alcoholism among college students, mostly women. Read more.