Binge Drinking a Big Problem Among High School Girls, CDC Reports

One in five high school girls binge drink, according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report finds almost 14 million women in the United States binge drink about three times a month.

The binge drinking rate among high school girls is almost as high as their male peers, according to CNN. About 62 percent of high school senior girls said they engaged in binge drinking in 2011. For females, binge drinking is defined as having four or more drinks on one occasion.

“It is alarming to see that binge drinking is so common among women and girls, and that women and girls are drinking so much when they do,” Robert Brewer, MD, MSPH, of the Alcohol Program at CDC, noted in a news release. “The good news is that the same scientifically proven strategies for communities and clinical settings that we know can prevent binge drinking in the overall population can also work to prevent binge drinking among women and girls.”

Binge drinking was responsible for more than half of the 23,000 deaths attributed to excessive alcohol use among women and girls in 2011, the report found. Women are more susceptible to the effects of drinking, because they can be physically smaller, according to the CNN article.