DO WE, STUDENTS, DRINK TOO MUCH?

Last years many questions are being asked concerning alcohol consumption among students in general and more specifically the ones in Leuven. Reasons for recent increased interest is the rise in vandal actions. Wing mirrors of many cars are apparently suffering from drunken students. It seems some of them also have problems walking straight, seeing the amount of cars that are being walked over during night. “We should not exaggerate the problem”, we hear on many levels. Also the link of vandalism with alcoholism is a valuable hypothesis but not yet proven in all cases. Anyhow the question remains: do we, students, drink too much?

The national institute for promotion of health and disorder prevention (NIGZ) defines excessive drinking as consuming more than 14 or 21 glasses of alcohol a week, depending on the gender of the person. A glass of alcohol means here one beer or a glass of wine. Among these 14 or 21 drinks, the person should have drunken at least four or six glasses at once in one occasion, again depending on the gender. So, if you realise this more or less fits your weekly behavior... well then you are an excessive drinker.

And it gets worse. The NIGZ adds extra behavioural criteria to which one should keep him or herself in order to not run the risk of becoming an excessive drinker. The institute states that on one single occasion women can only drink three glasses of alcohol maximum. Men can drink five. Further on each person needs to stay away from alcohol at least two days a week to prevent habit formation. Our beloved WHO (World Health organization) goes even further by putting the limit on one occasion on two consumptions for woman and three for men.

BIRTH CONTROL?
If you by now fear you have a problem and are almost deciding to throw out this “The Voice” because it fits in your stage of denial, please do not. It so happens these numbers must be put into perspective. Research namely shows that consumer behaviour differs between studying students and their not-studying companions of the same age. With regard to university students, research in Belgium is still scarce. A not so recent research showed that 1 student out of 10 shows excessive alcohol use and that 3.6% of the students is alcohol dependent. Among these alcohol dependents a majority is male. Alcohol also temporarily decreases fertility among this male population.
What is the positive note then, you wonder? Well if you have a terrible fear of having children, this last disadvantage might be something positive for you. In any case it seems that there is no significant correlation between excessive alcohol consumption and academic performance. Of course drinking alcohol while you are studying lowers your ability to concentrate. To conclude, we students should not worry too much. It seems namely that the excessive consumption of alcohol decreases once a student graduates and starts working.  So during the time we study, a few glasses now and then are perfectly legitimate, because, as our new rector Mark Waer says, it has been part of our culture since a very, very long time.