This Map Of U.S. Alcohol Consumption Has Me Respecting The Hell Out Of The Midwest

WJ Cope9 years ago

Recently, the team over at Project Know took a survey of over 1,400 college students, asking them a variety of questions about their experiences and habits with drinking and partying in college. They used a lot of what they found to put together a map of college drinking across the country. Here’s the map.

From Project Know:

The Midwest had the largest percentage of participants who told us they drank in college – over 92 percent. The Midwest also has the highest concentration of binge drinkers in the U.S.

The Midwest may also attribute its drinking habits to its severely cold winters. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) has been found to have a negative emotional impact on college students and can be responsible for causing depression which can lead to excessive drinking.

I’m honestly not too surprised about the Midwest taking the cake here. After all, Wisconsin holds 12 of the 20 drunkest cities in the nation. That 92% mark makes the West look like a monastery in comparison, and I have to think that my home state of Utah is driving our average down by at least two or three percentage points.

The least surprising thing about this map is that the South isn’t too far behind the Midwest when it comes to hitting the bottle. In my experience, the South is a lot like the Midwest, but it’s warmer and your chances of hearing banjos in the forest are much greater. As for the Midwest’s link to Seasonal Affective Disorder, I’m not sure I’m buying into that correlation. We have SAD out west too, and we’ve opted for a crippling opioid problem instead of excessive drinkng. Ha, that’ll show the Midwest!.

[via Project Know]

Image via YouTube