Binge exercising

Spring break is just around the corner. Facebook statuses and tweets have begun to beg for the end of next week, and campus conversations have started to focus on who’s going where. However, the advent of the long-awaited hiatus from classes comes with a price: the overcrowding of nearly every exercise facility on campus.

Sure, for those of us who routinely use the gym year-round the imminent spike in patrons before spring break is annoying, but it could be worse. Despite the lines for equipment and the insufferable “one in, one out” policy for the weight rooms, the congestion of the Student Recreational Sports Center and School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation is somewhat encouraging.

At the very least, overcrowding means our campus is getting off the couch and getting healthy. The approach of spring break motivates us all to take a long look in the mirror and do something about those extra beers we’ve been toting around our midsections. Spring break represents the first time bikinis and board shorts can be worn in months, and we’ll all be damned if we’re not the best-looking person on the beach.

The irony of the situation, however, is that for most college students, spring break is an alcoholic holiday. After months of hard work, abstention and treating our bodies like temples in order to get down to bathing suit weight, students will ruin it all in a singular week of binge drinking.

I find myself wondering what is it in the collegiate experience that makes us strive toward such a self-defeating cycle.

The answer, I would suggest, is a combination of two societal fallacies. First, we are a society of excess. It seems like intemperance and overindulgence are as much a part of the human experience as life and death. Second, with the preposterous emphasis society places on corporeal aesthetics, we’ve allowed our vanities and insecurities to get the best of us.

The volatile mixture of these two notions will loosen inhibitions, stoke social dependency and drive any unsuspecting spring break partier to the brink of bacchanalia.

The stereotypic use of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll will undoubtedly follow.

While we may all come out with some epic tales to tell, the end result is unavoidably one of hangovers and overexertion.

Then we’ll all come back from what was supposed to be a relaxing respite and be more exhausted and unmotivated than before we left.

So as we all continue preparing to go wherever our boisterous, lascivious and yes, intoxicated adventures might take us, consider practicing a little moderation this year.

It will make all the difference. Then maybe, just maybe, we won’t all need a break from our vacation.


E-mail: smech@indiana.edu