Abstract
Problematic drinking, gambling and eating are elevated among undergraduate university students but our understanding of how they are linked is limited. In this study, drinking, gambling and eating were assessed across a number of dimensions: drinking and gambling involvement, associated negative consequences, impairment of control, and motives; and disordered eating concerns and behaviours, loss of control over eating, and eating expectancies (N = 301). Canonical correlation analysis revealed that drinking and gambling were linked through a factor of general problematic involvement (R = 0.43): students who drank more, experienced more negative consequences and stronger social and coping motives for drinking, also had greater gambling involvement, impaired control, negative consequences, and stronger motives for gambling. These results are broadly consistent with a general problem syndrome model of underlying vulnerabilities. Results showed that there was also a small relationship between the alcohol and the eating variables (R = 0.40), reflecting a negative relationship between problematic alcohol involvement and a dimension of eating attitudes and behaviors. These results are not fully consistent with a problem syndrome model and instead suggest eating and alcohol serve different purposes among students, and that there is not a unitary relationship between eating attitudes and behaviors and alcohol involvement and motives. Finally, we observed no link between eating and gambling variables, which suggests these behaviors, are distinct. Men reported more alcohol and gambling-related involvement and concerns and women more eating-related concerns but principal component analysis suggested that, despite different levels of involvement, associations among these variables were similar for both genders.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adamson, S. J., Heather, N., Morton, V., & Raistrick, D. (2010). Initial preference for drinking goal in the treatment of alcohol problems: II. Treatment outcomes. Alcohol and Alcoholism, 45, 136–142.
Adlaf, E. M., & Ialomiteranu, A. (2000). Prevalence of problem gambling in adolescents: findings from the 1999 Ontario drug use survey. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 45, 752–755.
Adlaf, E. M., Begin, P., & Sawka, E. (2005). Canadian Addiction Survey (CAS): A national survey of Canadians' use of alcohol and other drugs. Ottawa: Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse.
Anderson, D. A., Simmons, A. M., Martens, M. P., Ferrier, A. G., & Sheehy, M. J. (2006). The relationship between disordered eating behavior and drinking motives in college-age women. Eating Behaviors, 7, 419–422.
Angle, S., Engblom, J., Eriksson, T., Kautiainen, S., Saha, M. T., Lindfors, P., et al. (2009). Three factor eating questionnaire-R18 as a measure of cognitive restraint, uncontrolled eating and emotional eating in a sample of young Finnish females. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 6, 41.
American Psychiatric Association (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed., ). Washington, DC: Author.
Barnes, G. M., Welte, J. W., Hoffman, J. H., & Tidwell, M. C. (2010). Comparisons of gambling and alcohol use among college students and noncollege young people in the United States. Journal of American College Health, 58, 443–452.
Cassin, S. E., & von Ranson, K. M. (2007). Is binge eating experienced as an addiction? Appetite, 49, 687–690.
Chung, T., & Martin, C. S. (2002). Concurrent and discriminant validity of DSM-IV symptoms of impaired control over alcohol consumption in adolescents. Alcoholism, Clinical and Experimental Research, 26, 485–492.
Cooper, M. L. (1994). Motivations for alcohol use among adolescents: development and validation of a four-factor model. Psychological Assessment, 6, 117–128.
Cooper, M. L., Russell, M., Skinner, J. B., & Windle, M. (1992). Development and validation of a three-dimensional measure of drinking motives. Psychological Assessment, 4, 123–132.
Cooper, M. L., Frone, M. R., Russell, M., & Mudar, P. (1995). Drinking to regulate positive and negative emotions: a motivational model of alcohol use. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 990–1005.
Cronce, J. M., & Larimer, M. E. (2011). Individual-focused approaches to the prevention of college student drinking. Alcohol Research & Health, 34, 210–221.
Dancyger, I. F., & Garfinkel, P. E. (1995). The relationship of partial syndrome eating disorders to anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Psychological Medicine, 25, 1019–1025.
Devos-Comby, L., & Lange, J. E. (2008). Standardized measures of alcohol-related problems: a review of their use among college students. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 22, 349–361.
Dickerson, M., & O’Connor, J. (2006). Gambling as an addictive behaviour. Impaired control, harm minimisation, treatment and prevention. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dunn, E. C., Larimer, M. E., & Neighbors, C. (2002). Alcohol and drug-related negative consequences in college students with bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 32, 171–178.
Fairburn, C. G., & Beglin, S. J. (1994). Assessment of eating disorders: interview or self-report questionnaire? International Journal of Eating Disorders, 16, 363–370.
Ferrier, A. G., & Martens, M. P. (2008). Perceived incompetence and disordered eating among college students. Eating Behaviors, 9, 111–119.
Fischer, S., Smith, G. T., & Cyders, M. A. (2008). Binge eating, problem drinking, and pathological gambling: linking behvior to shared traits and social learning. Personality and Individual Differences, 44, 789–800.
Heather, N., Tebbutt, J. S., Mattick, R. P., & Zamir, R. (1993). Development of a scale for measuring impaired control over alcohol consumption - a preliminary report. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 54, 700–709.
Heather, N., Booth, P., & Luce, A. (1998). Impaired control scale: cross-validation and relationships with treatment outcome. Addiction, 93, 761–771.
Hodgins, D. C., & Racicot, S. (2013). The link between drinking and gambling among undergraduate students. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 27, 885–892.
Hohlstein, L. A., Smith, G. T., & Atlas, J. G. (1998). An application of expectancy theory to eating disorders: development and validation of measures of eating and dietary expectancies. Psychological Assessment, 10, 49–58.
Horn, J. L. (1965). A rationale and test for the number of factors in factor analysis. Psychometrika, 30, 179–185.
Jackson, B., Cooper, M., Mintz, L., & Albino, A. (2003). Motivations to eat: scale development and validation. Journal of Research in Personality, 37, 297–318.
Jessor, R., & Jessor, S. L. (1977). Problem behavior and psychosocial development: A longitudinal study of youth. New York: Academic Press.
Jimenez-Murcia, S., Steiger, H., Israel, M., Granero, R., Prat, R., Santamaria, J. J., et al. (2013). Pathological gambling in eating disorders: prevalence and clinical implications. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 54, 1053–1060.
Karlsson, J., Persson, L. O., Sjostrom, L., & Sullivan, M. (2000). Psychometric properties and factor structure of the three-factor eating questionnaire (TFEQ) in obese men and women. Results from the Swedish obese subjects (SOS) study. International Journal of Obesity and Related Metabolic Disorders, 24, 1715–1725.
Lavender, D. M., De Young, K. P., & Anderson, D. A. (2010). Eating disorder examination questionnaire (EDE-Q): norms for undergraduate men. Eating Behaviors, 11, 119–121.
Leeman, R. F., Toll, B. A., Taylor, L. A., & Volpicelli, J. R. (2009). Alcohol-induced disinhibition expectancies and impaired control as prospective predictors of problem drinking in undergraduates. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 23, 553–563.
Leeman, R. F., Hoff, R. A., Krishnan-Sarin, S., Patock-Peckham, J. A., & Potenza, M. N. (2013). Impulsivity, sensation-seeking, and part-time job status in relation to substance use and gambling in adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Health, 54(4), 460–466.
Lorenzo-Seva, U., & Ten Berge, J. M. (2006). Tucker’s congruence coefficient as a meaningful index of factor similarity. Methodology, 2, 57–64.
Luce, K. H., Engler, P. A., & Crowther, J. H. (2007). Eating disorders and alcohol use: group differences in consumption rates and drinking motives. Eating Behaviors, 8, 177–184.
Luce, K. H., Crowther, J. H., & Pole, M. (2008). Eating disorder examination questionnaire (EDE-Q): norms for undergraduate women. The International Journal of Eating Disorders, 41, 273–276.
Lyvers, M., Hasking, P., Hani, R., Rhodes, M., & Trew, E. (2010). Drinking motives, drinking restraint and drinking behaviour among young adults. Addictive Behaviors, 35, 116–122.
Manwaring, J. L., Bryson, S. W., Goldschmidt, A. B., Winzelberg, A. J., Luce, K. H., Cunning, D., et al. (2008). Do adherence variables predict outcome in an online program for the prevention of eating disorders? Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 76, 341–346.
Marsh, A., Smith, L., Saunders, B., & Piek, J. (2002). The impaired control scale: confirmation of factor structure and psychometric properties for social drinkers and drinkers in alcohol treatment. Addiction, 97, 1339–1346.
Martens, M. P., Ferrier, A. G., Sheehy, M. J., Corbett, K., Anderson, D. A., & Simmons, A. (2005). Development of the protective behavioral strategies Survey5. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 66, 698–705.
Merrill, J. E., Wardell, J. D., & Read, J. P. (2014). Drinking motives in the prospective prediction of unique alcohol-related consequences in college students. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 75, 93–102.
Mudry, T. E., Hodgins, D. C., el-Guebaly, N., Wild, T. C., Colman, I., Patten, S. B., et al. (2011). Conceptualizing excessive behaviour syndromes: a systematic review. Current Psychiatry Reviews, 138-151.
Mudry, T. E., Stea, J. N., & Hodgins, D. C. (2014). The Psychological Underpinnings of Behavioral Addictions. In N.El-Guebaly (Ed.), Textbook of Addiction Treatment: International Perspectives (Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.
Nagoshi, C. T. (1999). Perceived control of drinking and other predictors of alcohol use and problems in a college sample. Addiction Research, 7, 291–306.
Neighbors, C., Lostutter, T. W., Larimer, M. E., & Takushi, R. Y. (2002). Measuring gambling outcomes among college students. Journal of Gambling Studies, 18, 339–360.
O’Connor, B. P. (2000). SPSS and SAS programs for determining the number of components using parallel analysis and velicer’s MAP test. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 32, 396–402.
O’Connor, J., & Dickerson, M. (2003). Impaired control over gambling in gaming machine and off-course gamblers. Addiction, 98, 53–60.
Piran, N., & Robinson, S. R. (2011). Patterns of associations between eating disordered behaviors and substance use in two non-clinical samples: a university and a community based sample. Journal of Health Psychology, 16, 1027–1037.
Potenza, M. N. (2009). Non-substance and substance addictions. Addiction, 104, 1016–1017.
Shaffer, H. J. (2012). Addiction syndrome handbook. (vols. 1. Foundations, influences, and expressions of addiction) Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Simmons, J. R., Smith, G. T., & Hill, K. K. (2002). Validation of eating and dieting expectancy measures in two adolescent samples. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 31, 461–473.
Sobell, L. C., Sobell, M. B., Maisto, S. A., & Cooper, A. M. (1985). Time-line follow-back assessment method. In D. J. Lettieri, M. A. Sayers, & J. E. Nelson (Eds.), NIAAA treatment handbook series: Vol. 2 Alcoholism treatment assessment research instruments (pp. 530–534). Washington, DC: National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse.
Sobell, M. B., Sobell, L. C., Klajner, F., Pavan, D., & Basian, E. (1986). The reliability of a timeline method for assessing normal drinker collage students' recent drinking history: utility for alcohol research. Addictive Behaviors, 11, 149–161.
Stewart, S. H., & Zack, M. (2008). Development and psychometric evaluation of a three-dimensional gambling motives questionnaire. Addiction, 103, 1110–1117.
Stice, E., Fisher, M., & Lowe, M. R. (2004). Are dietary restraint scales valid measures of acute dietary restriction? Unobtrusive observational data suggest not. Psychological Assessment, 16, 51–59.
Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (2007). Using multivariate statistics (Fifth ed., ). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Taylor, C. B., Bryson, S., Luce, K. H., Cunning, D., Doyle, A. C., Abascal, L. B., et al. (2006). Prevention of eating disorders in at-risk college-age women. Archives of General Psychiatry, 63, 881–888.
Wardle, J. (1987). Compulsive eating and dietary restraint. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 26, 47–55.
Wechsler, H., Lee, J. E., Nelson, T. F., & Kuo, M. (2002). Underage college students' drinking behavior, access to alcohol, and the influence of deterrence policies. Findings from the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study. Journal of American College Health, 50, 223–236.
Wilson, G. T. (2010). Eating disorders, obesity and addiction. European Eating Disorders Review, 18, 341–351.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Valerie Panjalingam and Erin Lowden, undergraduate Psychology students at the University of Calgary, for assisting with data entry of the completed questionnaire packages. Kristy Kowatch and Rodney Steadman helped with manuscript preparation.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hodgins, D.C., von Ranson, K.M. & Montpetit, C.R. Problem Drinking, Gambling and Eating Among Undergraduate University Students. What are the Links?. Int J Ment Health Addiction 14, 181–199 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-015-9598-2
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-015-9598-2