"I've heard of girls at Dartmouth who eat less before going out and work out more, but I've actually noticed the phenomenon more when I was outside of Dartmouth, doing an internship," Glass said. "People at work would be on a diet, but they didn't count beer. We'd go to dinner, they would barely eat at the restaurant, but then they would drink later."
Drunkorexia can be attributed to the double pressures to be skinny, but also to party and drink a lot. Glass said she thinks there is actually less pressure at Dartmouth to conform to these standards. "It's a pretty laid-back campus, and we can wear sweats and not be worried about looking good all the time. Personally, I haven't seen people worry that much about it. If there is pressure, people apply it on themselves." Lokensgard expressed similar sentiments. "You can't even really tell people's weight during the winter, when they're all bundled up," she said. "I know that looking good and partying hard is what is supposed to be considered cool, but at Dartmouth, there are a lot of people who don't fit that mold and are still really well liked."
"I think the stereotypical idea of what's hip doesn't really work at Dartmouth," Lokensgard continued. "Also, everybody's gained weight since freshman year anyways."
Although Glass and Lokensgard do not go through extreme measures to offset the calories from drinking, they did have certain methods to balance fitness and going out. "When I'm drinking, calories aren't my biggest concern, but it is a secondary or tertiary concern. I know which drinks have higher calorie content than others, and I just try to stick to the lighter ones," said Lokensgard.
Glass, who is a member of Sheba, said that she is trying to become more fit this term. "It may sound shallow, but we have an image of being sexy, and as a performer, I want to look good when I'm dancing in front of people," said Glass.
"What I try to do is drink alcohol with less calories in it -- liquor instead of beer because you can drink less of it, and diet soda as mixers, not juice," said Glass. "I personally like Vodka tonic because it has a low calorie count but is pretty strong."
Both students did not see drunkorexia as a possibly growing phenomenon at Dartmouth. "It's a bell curve -- I'm sure there are people who don't eat before going out, but I don't think it's the norm, I don't think it is a wide-spread problem," said Lokensgard. "I mean, on the other end, there are athletes who don't drink at all. I think most Dartmouth students are in the middle and pretty balanced."
Glass agreed. "I think it's variable, because there are people like me who would never go out without eating something beforehand," she said.
Erin is a staff writer for The Mirror.
