Featured Image: (Pacer Graphic / Sophia Phillips)
There are young adults out there who are definitely drinking energy drinks like water, even on the campus of UT Martin.
I knew one of them.
When we were freshmen in college, he was in the process of moving out to go to a different university when the year was up, and I offered to help him clean up and pack. We had gathered five gallon bags stuffed full with only energy drink cans.
A lot of the drinks were provided by the school from the Moonlight Breakfast before there was a restriction on how many drinks you could take. They had given him multiple boxes of Rockstar Energy drinks that he ended up drinking like water over the rest of the semester. In addition to those, he would buy a few Monster Energy drinks a day from On-the-Fly and drink them all throughout the day.
He was just one example of the students probably on campus who deal with this level of energy drink addiction.
Energy drinks are able to be bought by anyone, with no age cap, from stores across the county. There are only some local restrictions for people under 18. In a research project led by PubMed, it aimed to track the consumption of energy drinks among college-aged students.
Out of 496 participants, they found that 51% drink more than one energy drink per month with the intent of staying awake or increasing energy. According to the research, the most common reason college students drink them is to increase energy, while the lowest statistic was to treat a hangover.
Addiction to these drinks is commonplace with college students when it comes to staying awake for assignments, driving cars for extended periods of time or pulling all-nighters. The common price for a Monster Energy at the Dollar Store is $2.58 per can, with promotions such as three for $7.
Students like my friend are able to buy these drinks due to the affordable price and the lack of restrictions on them. It enables a very real addiction and poses a major threat to students’ health.
Common side effects of energy drink consumption include heart palpitations, high blood pressure, insomnia, raised anxiety and dehydration. These drinks send 200,000 people to the emergency room annually. If a person is not careful, overconsumption can lead to seizures and cardiac arrhythmia.
If you have an energy drink addiction, please limit yourself to at least once a day, maybe even once a week, for your own health. They are OK if consumed in moderation, but not in place of water.
