Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Journal of Community Health https://doi.org/10.1007/s10900-018-0532-y ORIGINAL PAPER The Role of Adolescent Victimization in Energy Drink Consumption: Monitoring the Future, 2010–2016 Dylan B. Jackson 1  · Wanda E. Leal 2  · Chad Posick 3  · Michael G. Vaughn 4  · Myrah Olivan 1 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018 Abstract Energy drinks have been linked to a number of deleterious health outcomes among youth. Even so, the underlying risk fac- tors for energy drink consumption among youth are less frequently examined. The present study examines the link between adolescent victimization experiences (i.e., property and violent victimization) and energy drink consumption among a nation- ally representative sample of adolescents. We employed the seven most recent cohorts (2010–2016) from the Monitoring the Future (MTF) study. A multi-stage random sampling technique was used to acquire the U.S. sample. Youths reported the extent to which they consumed energy drinks. Additionally, three indicators of property victimization and four indica- tors of violent victimization were available in the data. The fndings reveal a signifcant dose–response relationship between energy drink consumption and victimization. This relationship was especially pronounced among females. For instance, more than 52% of females with the highest count of various violent victimization experiences consumed energy drinks, which was three times the rate of females who had no previous violent victimization experiences. Practitioners who interact with adolescent victims may probe for energy drink usage in addition to other addictive substances such as alcohol, tobacco, and drugs. Additional scrutiny may also be in order in regulating the amount of cafeine and sugar allowed in these beverages. Keywords Energy drinks · Victimization · Gender Introduction A recent, troubling trend in hazardous health behaviors is the increasing consumption of energy drinks—many of which are high in sugar and cafeine. Energy drinks are consumed by up to 50% of adolescents aged 10–19 and over 30% do so regularly [1]. Energy drink sales are now the fastest growing in the beverage market [2]. The reason why this increase is concerning is that consumption of energy drinks has been associated with a host of negative health consequences including depression and anxiety [3, 4], cardiovascular and neurological damage [5, 6], sleep disturbances [7, 8], and substance abuse [5, 9–11]. Relatedly, the growing trend of mixing energy drinks with alcohol has been found to pro- duce more severe health outcomes than the use of either substance alone [12, 13]. While research on the rate of energy drink consumption and associated health risks is surfacing [14, 15], much less is known about the reasons why adolescents engage in energy drink consumption in the frst place. One specifc factor that may be of particular importance is exposure to victimiza- tion. Adolescents who have a history of victimization have reported more mental and physical health problems than their peers [16, 17] and sufer from various forms of emo- tional distress [18]. Furthermore, school-aged youth exposed to victimization perform less well in school in comparison to their non-victimized counterparts [19]. * Dylan B. Jackson Dylan.Jackson@utsa.edu 1 Department of Criminal Justice, College of Public Policy, The University of Texas at San Antonio, 501 W. Cesar E Chavez Blvd., San Antonio, TX 78207, USA 2 Department of Social Sciences, College of Arts & Sciences, Texas A&M University – San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, USA 3 Department of Criminal Justice & Criminology, College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA, USA 4 School of Social Work, College for Public Health and Social Justice, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO, USA