Many university students dread the "freshman 15" -- those extra pounds that creep on from too many pizza nights and beer-soaked pub nights.
But researchers are noticing a growing trend among young women of something they call "drunkorexia," where women cut out the pizza and other meals so they can save their calories for drinking at night.
The goal of "drunkorexia" is to get drunk fast while also keeping your waistline trim and saving a few dollars to boot.
Researchers at the University of Missouri have been studying the trend, and while their findings haven't been peer-reviewed, they have been presented to a few medical conferences.
The researchers found that about one in six students they surveyed had reported restricting calories to "save them" for drinking. About three times as many women reported doing it than men.
Students at the University of Calgary say they know lots of students who cut back on meals during days when they know they'll be out drinking that night.
"I know days when students plan to drink they're probably going to eat less that day especially if they're girls," one student told CTV News.
Another said: "If you're going to drink that night maybe you'll have breakfast but you won't eat too much stuff during the day."
Valerie Taylor, chief of psychiatry at Women's College Hospital in Toronto, says young women who starve themselves and then binge drink put themselves at risk of developing more severe eating disorders and substance abuse issues later in life.
They also risk getting highly intoxicated, which brings risks of its own.
Research is showing it can lead to mild brain damage. It's also been linked with unwanted or unsafe sex, violence and injuries of all types.
"When young women get intoxicated, they set themselves up for a lot of different problems, in that they're more vulnerable to sexual assault and more vulnerable to physical assault, so that's a concern," Taylor says.
While binge drinking is often considered a rite of passage for young men and women, doctors say what's needed is more campaigns to make young people aware of the dangers of binge drinking – both on an empty and on a full stomach.
With a report from CTV's Janet Dirks
