Tori Taormina is an agricultural business freshman. Letters to the editor do not reflect the viewpoints or editorial coverage of Mustang News.

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It’s Thursday night, and you and your friends are getting ready to hit the bars downtown. As you put on your makeup and get ready for the night out, one of your friends mentions that they are getting hungry and suggest you all grab a quick dinner before going out. That idea gets shut down immediately; a night of drinking does not call for food before, because one less meal equals one more drink.

Many college students are getting through the week by waiting for Thursday night to go out and let loose at the next fraternity party, house party or even downtown, but what is not on their agenda is dinner. Drunkorexia is when people skip a meal in order to participate in binge drinking later. It is not a registered eating disorder yet, but it can lead to long-term consequences if it is not treated fast.

Binge drinking is something we see all the time in young adults, and according to Addiction Center, “26 percent of young adults rely on drunkorexic practices as weight-management techniques.”

Young adults deliberately skipping dinner to save the calories for drinking is a trend that is blossoming in college students, even here at Cal Poly. I created an anonymous survey of females at Cal Poly and out of the 50 female undergrad students I interviewed, 26 said that they intentionally skipped a meal before a night of heavy drinking solely for the reason that they wanted to save the extra calories.

College is a stressful time where student’s need to learn how to become independent by living on their own, by figuring out their own meals and studying to keep up with their heavy course load. They dread the thought of potentially gaining the “Freshman 15″ — especially women — and pray that they will not be affected by it.

At Cal Poly, working out and being fit has been the norm. This puts a huge load of stress on many women and makes them feel pressured to fit in with the “Poly Dolly” stereotype. This is when the drunkorexic behaviors kick in, in order to cope with the pressure to fit in to what society feels is normal. Society is ultimately telling us what is and is not perfect, and we cannot accept the stereotypical “Poly Dolly” into our perception of what is perfect.