Sure, the Quakers may no longer bask in the past glory of winning Ivy League football championships, but it's never difficult to uphold our "Social Ivy" title. All that entails is copious amounts of alcohol.
Disclaimer: I am neither condemning nor condoning the use of alcoholic beverages, especially among the underaged. You have all passed AlcoholEdu, so no need for another didactic lecture.
But to those who are booze-friendly: Are you a smart consumer? Perhaps it's time to re-examine the costs of alcohol consumption - specifically, its obesity-inducing power.
Granted, we are all keenly aware of the strong positive correlation between alcohol intake and our waist sizes. The exact biochemical process behind it goes something like this: Alcohol, which contains seven calories of energy per gram, reduces the amount of fat your body is able to burn. As a result, your poor body is forced to store the excessive unburned fat calories. That, in turn, translates into extra pounds.
Despite its small quantity, a glass of wine (say, Chardonnay) can add an extra 90 calories to our daily intake. One point five ounces of a spirit alone, such as that shot of Jack you just downed, can contain anywhere from 50 to 200 calories. And that's before mixing in the sugar-laden sodas, fruit juice, syrup, tonic water and cream.
The figures for beer are even grimmer. A 12-ounce can of Budweiser, for instance, has 145 calories.
An online article on Forbes.com last December revealed the top 10 "most fattening cocktails." The crown winner was the Long Island ice tea, boasting 780 calories along with 44 grams of carbohydrates, the equivalent of a McDonald's Quarter Pounder plus an order of medium French fries.
Margaritas came in a close second with 740 calories and 58 grams of carbs. Other drinks detrimental to your diet plans, according to Forbes.com, include pina coladas, white Russians, champagne cocktails and mojitos. Even cosmopolitans, the ever popular drink among the ladies, offer as much as 150 calories.
It's a bit ironic when juxtaposing such astronomical numbers against the magnitude of body-image-consciousness at Penn. Today, Pottruck Gym seems to be the trendiest spot on campus. Girls as well as guys willingly dedicate hours a week confined in a stifling room, inhaling the sweet aroma of body odor while perpetually working out on cardio machines.
And when it comes to food, well, calories surely need to be counted down to the last decimal point. Please, I want no onions, mayonnaise, cheese, mustard or ketchup on my grilled chicken sandwich. I mean, those superfluous 45.32 calories just won't do.
Yet all that strenuous exercise and meticulous food calculation can go to waste in one simple night of drunken debauchery. Even if you limit yourself to only two beers and two shots, that still adds up to about 520 calories -- and that's a conservative estimate. No wonder Pottruck has not been yielding your ideal results lately.
So, to the girl on that yonder elliptical sweating her ass off on an early Friday evening, only to find herself later downing red plastic cups of who-knows-what: Don't bother. You might as well have indulged yourself with a tub of cookie dough.
Tips for the calorie-conscious drinkers: Never attempt to skip meals to save calories. Not only is such a practice highly dangerous, but it can be counterproductive. Alcohol's lowering of your blood-sugar level signals hunger to your brain, thus rousing your appetite. Soon enough, you will find yourself devouring an entire bag of late-night munchies.
This might sound crazy, but how about moderation, or even abstinence, for a change? The sober bunch, according to an Office of Health Education survey, actually constitutes nearly 15 percent of the current Penn undergrad population. It probably surprises you that, yes, life actually exists outside the realm of alcohol.
Shawn Woodhull, a Wharton sophomore, refrains from alcohol for health reasons, despite being in a fraternity on campus and going out three or four times a week. "A lot of people think that it's necessary to drink if you want to go out and have fun, but that's not the case at all," Woodhull told me. "I am a social person, and my friends do not ostracize me because I can't drink."
So, rather than futilely watching we eat, perhaps we should try watching what we drink. After all, gulping down that truckload of empty liquid calories defeats the purpose of tirelessly running on those treadmills. To the aforementioned girl in Pottruck: I sincerely hope you caught that.
Jenny Zhan is a College and Wharton sophomore from Pleasanton, Calif. Her e-mail address is zhan@dailypennslyvanian.com. Jenny from the 'Burbs appears on Fridays.
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