Researchers at the University of Missouri say that college kids, specifically young women, are skipping dinner in droves in favor of downing alcoholic drinks and getting drunk quicker. So much so, that it’s becoming an epidemic.

An earlier study out of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill suggested that women with eating disorders were more likely to admit to alcohol abuse than bulimia or anorexia. Of 13,000 women profiled in that study, those with an alcohol problem were also more likely to develop an eating disorder as well.

Drunkorexia, adds the University of Missouri report, is also occurring in young men, but in only a fraction of the figure. Around 11 percent of males surveyed admitted to be drunkorexic.

"Apart from each other, depriving the brain of adequate nutrition and consuming large amounts of alcohol can be dangerous," says Victoria Osborne, assistant professor of social work and public health who helped put together the research. She adds that by combining the two practices together, young people are developing cognitive problems including difficulty concentrating, studying and making decisions.