Understanding drunkorexia behaviors among college students using the theory of planned behavior

Drunkorexia refers to high-risk behaviors that involve the intersection of disordered eating behaviors and risky alcohol consumption. This study utilized the extended Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to identify potential psychosocial factors that contribute to drunkorexia among students (484 undergraduate students) from a midwestern Mid-sized university. This cross-sectional study used online surveys designed to measure various drunkorexia-related behaviors including alcohol consumption, calorie restriction, excessive exercise, and purging utilizing antecedents of the TPB. About one-fourth of participants reported engagement in drunkorexia. The extended TPB model reported strong predictive validity for intention for calorie restriction, excessive exercise, and purging with instrumental attitudes and capacity being significant predictors for all three behaviors. Findings provide more profound insight regarding patterns of drunkorexia that could inform future theory-based interventions to address drunkorexia among college students. •Drunkorexia is becoming more common as college drinkers reported participating/practicing 1.04 days per week on average.•The least common compensatory behavior for drunkorexia was purging.•Instrumental attitudes were the strongest predictor of intentions to engage in any drunkorexia behavior.