Drunkorexia represents an emerging phenomenon among young people, characterized by the co-occurrence of disordered eating and alcohol consumption. Despite drunkorexia has aroused interest among popular media and scholars in recent years, our understanding of this health-risk behavior is still poor and little is known about the potential factors that may be involved in this new trend. Existing literature have highlighted an important role of coping styles in the engagement of problematic drinking and eating; however, to our knowledge no study has yet explored whether different strategies individuals use to deal with and respond to stressful events and situations, may be involved in drunkorexia behaviors. Thus, the aim of the present study will be to investigate the potential role that several coping strategies, may function as risk or protective factors against such unhealthy behavior among a sample of male and female young adults.
Despite the prevalence and the serious negative health consequences associated with drunkorexia, to date this phenomenon is still poorly studied. Furthermore, among the few existing studies in this field, a number of them only involved women (Buchholz, Crowther, & Ciesla, 2018; Knight et al., 2017); however, recent estimates suggested no significant gender difference in the engagement in drunkorexia behaviors (Lupi et al., 2017, Pompili & Laghi, 2018), suggesting the importance to investigate drunkorexia in both males and females. Thus, to date, the understanding of drunkorexia is in its early stages, and very little is known about the potential factors involved in this new trend among young adults. To our knowledge, no study so far has investigated the potential role that strategies young people usually use to cope with distress, may represent factors that may increase vulnerability or protect against the indulging in drunkorexia. Indeed, a better comprehension of the mechanisms underlying drunkorexia is an important issue in order to plan and implement more appropriate and effective prevention programs and provide directions for future programs. In spite of the contribution that the present research may provide to the literature regarding drunkorxia, it is important to acknowledge some of the limitations. First, all the variables will be assessed using self-report measures; therefore, they might be subject to self-report bias. Second, the cross-sectional design limits us from distinguishing the causal relations between the variables. Thus, longitudinal studies are needed to test the course and long-term effects of coping strategies on drunkorexia behaviors. The current study may have implications for future research in this area and for intervention and prevention programs.