Student daze

Is abusing your body when you're at college really such a disaster, asks Alan Trotter

It's the parents I worry about. The kids will be all right. Never mind the newspaper articles banging on about the health risks facing the new batch of university-goers come term time, and the special student-centric cookbooks and health reports which cement fears that the average student is going to be a scurvy-ridden, jaundiced mess by the end of freshers' week. As someone who's just been through all that - the bad diet, the lack of exercise, the drinking - and survived (with a 2:1), it's hard to take the worries too seriously.

But parents who are already terrified about sending their precious spawn out into a heartless and uncaring world are fair game to these scaremongers surrounding the familial home with red-eyed demons. And what gives these claims teeth to really frighten Mum and Dad is that they're absolutely right.

Face it: there is no way that your children will restrict their alcohol intake to the government's suggested two drinks per session, or that they will be eating five pieces of fresh fruit and veg per day. In all likelihood they will be taking full advantage of their union's enthusiastic drinks offers and exceeding their RDA of deep-fried Mars bars. But it's not going to kill them; they'll make it out the other side. Almost certainly. And once they do, maybe then they can start thinking about repairing the damage done.

Certainly they'll pay a price. In the short term, they might get a complexion to show that cigarette smoke is not the best cleanser. And in the long term, every kebab they eat now may well add to their time in Weight Watchers purgatory when they reach middle age. But are they really doing irreparable damage?

While ideally they'd all be doing star-jumps at dawn, can they make up for lost ground after graduation if they give exercise a miss for, say, three or four years? David Stensel, lecturer in exercise physiology at Loughborough University mentions a study of Harvard alumni that showed that those who were inactive at university but subsequently took up an active lifestyle would lower their risk of cardio-vascular disease, but says, "You can lead a bad lifestyle for a day and it isn't going to kill you. Yeah we can live a bad lifestyle for a week, and it probably won't lead to any harm. But it's difficult to put your finger on exactly when it ceases to be OK."

And as for alcohol, says Andrew McNeill of the Institute of Alcohol Studies, "people tend to survive the experience, but with the qualification that they don't necessarily survive it unscathed. And it depends what happens next."

McNeill raises concerns about the immediate effects on an individual's capacity for understanding excessive alcohol intake and also the health hazards ("We know that conditions such as cirrhosis and pancreatitis are increasing and the incidence of those diseases is now moving down the age range"). But talking sense to students about drinking to excess, when they drink to escape the parts of their lives concerned with talking sense, is perhaps limited, especially with so many examples of those who've drunk foolishly and come out the other side (stick with me on this, liver).

As for diet - well, how fully the damage of youthful indiscretions can be undone is far from clear. Claire Williamson of the British Nutrition Foundation says, "Large studies have shown that, for example, a high intake of fruit and vegetables can help lower your risk of heart disease. What we don't know is whether this is something you need to be doing your whole life or whether you can have a poor diet early on."

Maybe instead of hoping against hope that students will see sense, and avoid all the ills and temptations of their new-found freedom, some more practical advice would be useful. In which case, pay attention students.

One, acquire a large George Foreman Grill: there is nothing they cannot cook. And two, do not mix energy drinks with vodka: it is a combination of chemicals designed to pull your mind in worthless and nasty directions. That is all.