"She's gonna get fat."

As college students, we are constantly inundated with new knowledge. It can be useful, thought-provoking, or crammed into our head on a Starbucks-fueled binge several hours before an exam. However, very rarely do we question the validity of all this new knowledge (unless you take philosophy classes, then you’ll question away).

That’s where College Candy comes in. We’re not going to debate whether or not the Theory of Relativity actually exists (a disappointment, I know, but I’m a communications major and stopped taking science classes after Baby Bio fresh year). However, we are here to thoroughly investigate the most widespread college knowledge (no, not rhyming): the myth.

Alright guys, I’m gonna level with you: I’m a big fan of the brewskies. I like Sam Adams Pumpkin Ale, Sweetwater 420, the occasional stein of Newcastle, and the slightly more frequent funnel full of Bud Light. I particularly like that I can drink copious amounts of beer without the consequences that would come from drinking the same amount of vodka, water & lime. Most of all, I like that beer lends itself easily to day-drinking.

What I don’t like about beer (besides how much it makes me want to sing drinking songs) is that it makes me fat.

It’s not even the eventual, slowly-creeping-towards-your-thighs fat. It’s like an immediate, “I’m so carbonated and delicious and I’m going to make you so full you can’t suck in anymore” variety of fat. So it’s no wonder that beer contributes majorly to the Freshman 15, right? Ehh, yes and no.

The typical 12 ounce beer has around 150 calories. So obviously, each one you drink adds to your bottom line of calorie intake. The more calories you consume without burning them off, the more weight you’re gonna gain (I know, it’s all very scientific). But if you carefully measure out your Stairmaster time to counteract the beer pong tournament you plan on winning later and you’re still gaining weight, it might not be Natty Light’s fault.

A strange thing happens when I drink beer. Come the end of the party/night/gameday/Happy Hour, I feel this strange magnetic force pulling me in the direction of anywhere that serves cheese fries. I’m not the only one, right?  Ok, good.

Beer, while awesome, still has alcohol in it (actually I’m pretty sure that’s what makes it awesome). Alcohol has this sneaky, two pronged approach to weight gain. In and of itself, it’s a highly caloric waste of nutritional value. On top of that, it lowers inhibitions. So not only are you more likely to make out with that guy who dressed up as a Smurf for Halloween (my best friend is still trying to get the blue body paint off of her sheets), you’re more likely to think that a Big Mac is totally worth blowing your day of careful eating and yoga. And it might not stop at the Big Mac, because we all know McDonald’s is a gateway drug to pizza and Lucky Charms.

So, while beer will make you gain weight (without exercise and self-control), another often-overlooked aspect of weight gain is beer’s BFF, Drunk Eating. The best way to avoid gaining a beer gut that isn’t even beer? Don’t stock your fridge with unhealthy crap, keep snacks in pre-portioned containers or bags, and for the love of all that is holy do not ask the cab driver to stop at Taco Bell on the way home! Instead, eat a good dinner with complex carbs and protein on nights you know you’re goin’ out big. Good judgment before 5 rounds of flip cup might just ensure better judgment after you are dubbed queen of the first try flip.

Here are a few reasons why you should be eating breakfast:1. Lucky Charms might be the best things on earth.

2. People who eat breakfast tend to lose more weight than those who don’t.

3. Um, pancakes? Hellooooo, heaven!

4. If you don’t, you will lose your virginity at a younger age.

A recent study was done in Japan and found that those surveyed who ate breakfast in their middle school years lost their virginity almost 2 years later (on average) than those who didn’t. At first glance one would think that Tony the Tiger may have been the best sex ed teacher around, but really the reasoning is more closely related to the kinds of homes kids grow up in; supportive families serve breakfast and not-so-supportive families don’t…and don’t teach anything about sex, either.

I tend to eat 2 breakfasts every morning, so maybe that’s why I didn’t do the dirty until I was 21? And maybe my obsession with breakfast-for-dinner can explain the sexual drought I’ve been in for months.

It’s all starting to make sense now.

Taking 20 credits, working two jobs, and writing your thesis doesn’t leave for a whole lot of free time, and that’s a pretty hard thing to adjust to. I usually like to procrastinate – I work better with a gun to my head, it seems. But now I have to work in advance, because I don’t have time to do things the way I normally do.

This weekend, I don’t even have time to drink. What is my world coming to?

As for lessons learned these past two weeks or so, I realized the value of backing your sh*t up like your life depends on it. My thesis chapter was due on Monday. I didn’t finish it until Tuesday. Now, because I have an older version of OpenOffice (a free version of Microsoft Office, essentially), when my computer decided to spazz out, I lost 11 out of 12 pages.

Cue comfort food binging.

I binge eat when I’m upset. It’s a problem I’ve been working on for a while now, but I’m worried that this year might drive me back to it – especially when I’m this upset at the very beginning of the semester.

I started work this week essentially calling old alumni and asking them to donate to the college. Some of them ask me what I’m doing when I get out of school, and my uncertain answer usually consists of some variation of “I don’t know.” I’ve always want to work with animals, but I want to continue writing. There doesn’t seem to middle choice that I can find right now…and I don’t really feel like entirely looking for it. I don’t like thinking about the future as it is – planning the next couple years of my life nearly on my own has be a little upset.

Okay, who am I kidding? I’m flipping out.

For now, though, I’m just going to plow through the next couple of days. And maybe on Monday – because I don’t have time to do it on Sunday – I’ll get my drink on. God knows I need it.

I think my senior year might turn me into an alcoholic, you guys.

[Picture courtesy gettyimages.com]

Strange, silly and awkward things overheard on campus this week:

- A lanky blonde man leans against a doorway, talking to a short-haired brunette.

“She’s really… nice, you know?” He shakes his head. “I mean, I just wanted someone to care about.”

“But a freshman?” she asks, feigning surprise. “Really!“

“Yeah. It was like fishing with dynamite.”

- Two grizzled, swarthy males stand in the dining hall.

“Man, I can’t believe there aren’t any forks,” remarks one, his thick lower lip turned in a pout. He moves one finger toward his collar unconsciously.

His friend looks sadly at the empty racks. “Yeah. I mean, I don’t even know anyone who uses spoons.”

- Across the dining hall, a guy stands up and starts singing “I’ll Make A Man Out Of You” from Mulan . About three quarters of the table joins in within seconds. One other guy grabs his tray, gets up and stalks away. “I thought we were done with this,” he says, darkly.

- Down the hallway, a pink-faced man is tying a lumpy plastic bag to a door. As I pass by, he looks up and smiles conspiratorially.

“It’s ladybugs,” he says.

- A punky blonde girl and redhaired boy – they look like a couple – are sitting with some others at a cafe table.

“But honestly,” says the boy, looking around the table. “Who sleeps with freshmen?”

As he looks back at the girl, she’s pointing straight at him. He shrugs.

- A professor, standing at the head of a class on prejudice and discrimination:

“Entries should be one page minimum, 12 point font. And please don’t write these drunk.”

“But what if you’re out drinking and someone says something racist?” asks a student in the back. “And you just have to write about it, but you won’t remember in the morning?”

The professor thinks about it for a minute. “Then I would take notes,” she says.

(Incidentally, the same professor suggested “gatorade and rice” as the best hangover cure.)

- Outside a dorm, three guys are sitting on the steps. They look sad about something

“Man, this sucks, dude, I’m so hungry.”

“Yeah,” says another. The smell of marijuana is thick in the air.

“F*ckin’ sucks,” the third says, mournfully.

At their feet, Lucky Charms are scattered about the steps.

You have to admit, it’s a lot easier to get out of bed every day when you know a bowl of marshmallows and milk awaits you. Of course kids and adults alike are hooked on this crap — it’s got freakin’ crack in it. And I don’t care that everyone and their mother is outlawing it and forcing kids to be healthier…there is STILL something to be said for eating a bucket of sugar for breakfast, so here’s my shout out to the top 5 most unhealthfully delicious cereals:

LUCKY CHARMS

They’re magically…charming. They say their serving size is 3/4 a cup..and yet most people, myself included, eat at least twice that amount. So…24 grams of sugar in one sitting? Ah. Who cares. They’ve got rainbows and marshmallows and sugar dripping from the cardboard box.

FRUITY PEBBLES

They’ve got fruit in them…right? Right? Okay. Maybe they don’t. But they’re still awesome. PLUS, they’re accompanied by awesome front-of-box graphics.

COUNT CHOCULA

Why is having dessert for breakfast such a sin? It’s probably the general assumption that sugar is not something you want swimming in your system so early on in the day. BUT, Count Chocula just can’t be denied (Mouth watering at this very moment). Remember this cereal? Pretty much any kid who got to actually eat it in the morning was admired by all — and probably wearing a mouth full of fillings today.

RICE KRISPIE TREATS

So you like rice krispie treats? Well, heck! Why not crumble ‘em up and throw ‘em in some milk and call it cereal? Sounds good to me…and millions of other kids out there, too. This cereal makes the list for its sheer audacity alone. These guys didn’t even TRY to make cereal with this one…they really just threw a dessert in some milk.

FROSTED MINI-WHEATS

These make my list because, to many, they give the ILLUSION of being a healthy cereal. I mean, c’mon, ‘wheat’ is in the title. What they should really call them is : ICING CAKED WHEAT THINGS. I think that would get the point across a little better. But hey, what do I know?

I am a firm believer in health. After all, I did get the Kashi cereal. BUT, let me ask you this…would it be easier for you to wake up in the morning if you knew you were waking up to these kinds of treats? Think about this one, folks.

Through blurry vision and a pounding head, I would reach for one “good-for-you” brand (for the base), and then proceed to find every sweet option available, filling my bowl to the brim with enough chemically altered sugar to keep me hopping for hours.

You see, when I was younger, my mom never let us have sweet cereal. We’d go with her to the grocery store, beg and plead for something with a cartoon character on it, and she’d simply shake her head, reach for the raisin bran, and state, “filling your mouth with sugar first thing in the morning means the dentist is going to have to pull your teeth.”

She could scare us for a little while, but once I grew up and realized eating sugary cereal doesn’t really dictate how many cavities you get drilled (I was the healthiest kid alive and still had about 3 of them), I vowed to find my way back the bobble-headed cartoons of my youth and their bounty of sweet.

So now, for your consideration, I present the Top 5 Sugary Cereals Of All Time (or at least my childhood):

Reeses’s Puffs: Even though it tasted nothing like the candy, this cereal was still the shit. Chocolate and peanut butter? With milk?! ALL IN ONE BOWL??! Who cared that the balls were hard and scratched up the top part of your mouth? Who cared that they got stale in a day? You were basically eating candy!!! For breakfast!!!

Fruit Loops: If you were smart enough to convince your parents that eating this cereal was actually good for you (“see Mom, FRUIT loops”), you soon found out how few spoonfuls it took to make your teeth chatter from sugar shock. Plus, watching your milk turn rainbow colors was like an LSD trip before you knew what LSD was.

Golden Grahams: Out of all the cereals, this one tasted more like it’s actual name than any of them. I often preferred to eat this cereal dry, finding milk just diluted the finely crafted sugar to cracker ratio.

Cookie Crisp: As a young child, the idea of eating cookies for breakfast blew my mind. Who was allowed to do such a thing? What Mom was so liberal that she let her kids dunk cookies in milk and call it a meal? One time in third grade, I actually met such a mom—she smoked a lot and asked us if we’d ever tasted whiskey before—but she always had a box of Cookie Crisp on top of her refrigerator that could be eaten at any time. Man, when she wasn’t screaming her neighbors or telling us about government conspiracies, she was totally cool.

Lucky Charms: At 24, I’m still this cereal’s bitch. I go back to it time and time again, even though I know there’s enough sugar inside those fake marshmallows to give me the shakes. What they should really do is just take out all the oat pieces (because I mean, seriously…no one eats those), and market this stuff as a synthetic sugar steroid.

Have I missed any of your favorites? What childhood cereals put you into a sugar coma?