Binge Drinking

            A topic I feel needs to be addressed, especially on college campuses is binge drinking. I know that it slowly creeps back into the public eye after a major accident occurs then quickly fades away like most social issues. At Indiana State University like most campuses it's nearly an epidemic. The signs that say only 64% of ISU students drink 4 or fewer drinks when they party is horribly inaccurate. From personal experience in many various groups I think that level could be much closer to 80%. That is my hypothesis on the level of binge drinking here at ISU. I hope to explore how many students are actually binge drinking. Who these students are, what their economic background is, where they are from, their age, sex, sexual preference, religion, and their major. Exploring the levels of binge drinking in each different category could be very eye opening. .
             I feel that it is a relevant issue that effects many college campus and students everyday. According to a 1997 national study conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health, nearly half of all college students surveyed drank four or five drinks in one sitting within the previous 2 weeks. Also, students who live in a fraternity or sorority house are the heaviest drinkers - 86 percent of fraternity residents and 80 percent of sorority residents report binge drinking. As a member of a sorority this fact really hit home. Even though men are more likely to drink with 50% of college men binging in a 2 week period women are chasing the gap with 39% of college women binging Because binge drinking can lead to other outside factors and problems. It is a widespread problem because in studies already done by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department in people ages 15 to 20, one in five persons under the legal drinking age was a binge drinker. Underage drinking is rampant because the rate of binge drinking among underage persons (19 percent) was almost as high as among adults aged 21 or older (21 percent).