Energy Drink Consumption and College Students

Energy drinks and other products are used by many people especially those who work more than 8 hours a day and those that are forced to work through the night. College students have also adapted their behavior to keep them awake when they are working as well as in other activities such as training and sports (Kayantaş &1 Yilmaz, 2018). The problem with the behavior is that it has some health-related problems especially when they used for a long time (Kim & Anagondahalli, 2017). According to research, male college students are the highest consumer of energy drinks while women are the least users (Gallucci et al. 2017). The male mostly uses the energy drink mixed with alcohol to stimulate the partying mood. Other students use the energy drink to help them conquer sleep especially when they are studying (David et al. 2013). Therefore, all the group of students in colleges uses energy drink in one way or the other.

However, the use of energy drink by many students in colleges is not excessive, but the negative effect starts when the drink is mixed with alcohol or used during exercise. According to the survey, many students do not understand that consumption of energy drink has an adverse effect on their young life (Goţia & Gurban, 2013). Therefore, the first step in eliminating the problem should be to educate the student about the energy drink by conducting campaigns which they can participate in like a concert. Caffeine, on the other hand, is the most used stimulant especially in the morning by consuming coffee. More than 70% of college student consume coffee as the main beverage (Poulos & Pasch, 2015). The problem with the consumption of energy drink is that the students who adopt the behavior eventually overdo it which becomes a problem.

The consumption of energy drink vary depending on the activities of the college students. Research has been conducted to determine the population of students that are affected most by the problem of energy drink consumption. Another factor which is used to ensure data, in this case, is the prescriptions. For many years students are prescribed energy-related products to increase their body mechanism (Kayantaş &1 Yilmaz, 2018). The prescriptions become a problem where the college students misuse them. For example, if a college student has a friend who uses prescribed to such conditions they also are tempted to use the product to get hyped. Most of the male students who consume a lot of energy do it for athletic activities or sexual activities (Kim & Anagondahalli, 2017). Therefore, one of the adverse effects of overconsumption energy drinks is unwanted sexual behavior among college students.

The second effect of high consumption of energy drink is lack of sleep. When student party the whole semester and exams time come they sleep out late trying to catch up with the syllabus. Such situations can lead to over-consumption of energy drinks to keep them awake through the night. When students do not sleep, they get fatigue which makes it difficult to participate in class activities (Arriaa et al. 2017). The effect of not being active in class leads to poor performance. The lifestyle on campus is also a contributing factor to high consumption of energy drinks in colleges. For example, in college, the students are always in a hurry to move from one place to another. Many of them do not have a good eating habit where only a few of them eat their meals in a day (Goţia & Gurban, 2013). They go to a fast food stall and gets coffee and a snack for any meal. The eating habits have made the college students to consume a lot of coffee.

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Method

Participants

Participants were obtained via text messaging and social media like Twitter. There was a total of 30 participants in the current study, with most of the participants being 22 years of age. 19 were female and 11 were male. All of the participants are students who attend Montclair State University.

Measures

The survey “Caffeine/Energy Drink Consumption and Meals Per Day” was a 16-item questionnaire to assess the demographics of age and gender and amount of time spent at work or in class and how many days per week. Also, usage of caffeine related beverages such as coffee and energy drinks were measured to look at rates of consumption as well as how many meals were had in a day and if that was possibly affected by schedule.

Procedure

The survey link was given out through text messaging, Twitter, and e-mail asking participants to take the survey and were brought to the survey on Google Forms upon clicking on the link. It took each participants about 5 minutes to complete the survey. No personal information, such as email address was taken, and the survey remained anonymous with all questions being required in order to move to the next one.

Results

There was a mean age of 22 in the sample obtained with a total of 30 participants. A Pearson r correlation was conducted in order to assess if there was a relationship between how much coffee one consumes per week with how many times one has class or work, if coffee consumed is related to hours of time spent in class, along with the time one wakes up with how much caffeine they consume to help wake up. There was not a significant correlation between the two variables and it was negative, r (put number of cases here) = -.17, n = 30, p > .05. In regard to coffee consumed with how many hours are spent per day in class, there was a non-significant and also negative correlation between the two, r = -.35, n = 30, p > .05. There was no significant correlation between the earlier one wakes up, the more caffeine is consumed to help wake up, r = .01, n = 30, p > .05.

A Pearson r correlation was also done in order to see if there was a relationship between gender and energy drinks. The Pearson test revealed that there was no correlation between the two, r = .26, n = 30, p > .05.

A Pearson r correlation was conducted in order to assess if the amount of the amount of meals replaced with how many hours were spent in class or work per day along with if the amount of caffeine consumed was correlated with if meals were replaced. There was no correlation between if meals were replaced with how many hours were spent in class or work r = 1.72, n = 30, p > .05. However, it is important to note that 88.7% of participants reported missing a meal because of school or work and 76.7% find it difficult to fit meals in during the day. There was a significant, positive correlation between amount of caffeine consumed with meals being replaced, r = -.52, n = 30, p = .003. A Pearson r correlation examined the relationship between time waking up and class per week as well. There was a significant positive correlation between the two, r = .47, n = 30, p .05.

An independent sample t-test was run to compare time waking up, coffee per week, and meals replaced based on gender. There was no significant difference between the time one wakes up for males (M = 8.45, SD = 1. 75) and females (M = 7.68, SD = 1.63); t(28)=1.21, p = .24, along with no significant difference with coffee per week for males (M = 4.09, SD = 2.81) and females (M = 2.47, SD = 2.55); t(28)= 1.61, p = .56. Lastly, there was no significant difference revealed by the independent sample t-test comparing meals replaced with caffeine for males (M = 1.82, SD = .40) and females (M = 1.68, SD = .48); t(28)= .78, p = .1.

References

Arriaa, A., Caldeiraa, K., Bugbeea, B.,Vincenta, K., Grady, K. (2017). “Trajectories of energy drink consumption and subsequent drug use during young adulthood.” Retrieved from http://www.elsevier.com/locate/drugalcdep

David, K. Spierer, D., Blanding, N., Santella, A. (2013). “Energy Drink Consumption and Associated Health Behaviors among University Students in an Urban Setting.” Springer Science Business Media New York

Gallucci, A., Martin, R., Morgan, G. (2017). “The Consumption of Energy Drinks Among a Sample of College Students and College Student Athletes.” CrossMark

Goţia, S. & Gurban, C. (2013). “Nutrition, coffee, alcohol consumption in students’ life style.” 7-11

Kayantaş, I. &1 Yilmaz, G. (2018). “A Study On Energy Drinking Consumption Behaviors And Awareness Of University Students.” Pdf

Kim, J. & Anagondahalli, D. (2017). The Effects of Temporal Perspective on College Students’ Energy Drink Consumption.” Health Psychology: 898–906

Poulos, N. & Pasch, K. (2015). “Socio-demographic differences in energy drink consumption and reasons for consumption among US college student.” The University of Texas at Austin. 318-330