Analysis of energy drinks consumption and associated factors among college students

Objective To investigate college students' energy drink (ED) consumption and associated factors, and to provide a reference for maintaining college students' mental and physical health. Methods Stratified cluster sampling was used to select 2 264 college students to complete questionnaires for the condition of energy drinking and associated influencing factors. Results Within a month, 51.0% college students had drunk ED, 46.8% students' drinking frequency was ≤9 times, 4.2% students' drinking frequency was ≥10 times; there were significant differences in different gender, major, grade, BMI, smoking, drinking, gambling and weight controlling behaviors students' ED consumption frequency (χ2 were 168.91, 149.08, 92.92, 25.20, 83.42, 85.77, 11.50, 20.50 respectively, both P<0.01), the males' (65.6%) was higher than the females' (38.2%), the sports majors' (74.1%) was higher than the arts', sciences' and painting majors' (45.6%, 44.6%, 42.2%), the freshmen and sophomores' (58.9%, 58.2%) were higher than the juniors' (37.4%), the normal and overweight-obesity BMIs' (53.5%, 54.4%) were higher than the too low BMIs' (40.5%), the smokers' (68.4%) was higher than the non-smokers' (45.7%), the drinkers' (63.5%) was higher than the non-drinkers' (43.4%), the gamblers' (62.1%) was higher than the non-gamblers' (49.8%), the dieters' (53.9%) was higher than the non-dieters' (43.2%); the gender, major, grade, smoking, drinking and weight controlling behaviors were associated factors on college students' energy drink consumption, males'consumption was more than female's (OR=3.13), freshmen and sophomores' consumption were more than juniors' (OR=2.40, 2.23), the students' consumption of sports majors was more than that of science and painting major (OR=0.28, 0.48), students with smoking, drinking and losing weight consumed more ED than students without these behaviors (OR=0.77, 0.80, 0.79). Conclusion More than half college students had drunk ED; society, school and home should pay attention to this phenomenon, and take measures to reduce ED consumption frequency, to maintain students' physical and mental health.