it's 1:37 a.m. Thursday. Holed up in his dorm room, a studious Ivy Leaguer burns the midnight oil, cramming for a physics final while snacking on cold pizza washed down with a gigantic Coke, hoping the sugar and ca.eine will do the trick. Somewhere across campus, a frat jock finds himself on the receiving end of a beer funnel, guzzling gallons of Natty Light. Both represent the current state of the student union: an ever-expanding collective gut, evident at almost all of the nation's universities.

These years are about debauchery as much as they are about learning and excelling. However, as our country gets fatter, what was once the great rite of passage for young people has only intensified an epidemic in America, as the post college years have not seen a return to better living once the party is over.

But who's winning the war? Which colleges and universities are helping their students keep their weight under control? Which student bodies are working hardest to maintain their health and fitness, and which ones are letting everything go, piling on pound after pound?

In our first report on the health of America's college campuses, we partnered with the Princeton Review, one of America's premier research organizations and an expert on tracking the fickle interests and habits of college students. Together, we surveyed nearly 10,000 students from more than 660 of the nation's top colleges and universities, asking them everything from the personal ("How many pounds have you gained or lost since you started going to school?" "How often do you work out?") to their thoughts on the big-picture issues ("How would you rate the fitness facilities on your campus?" "Does your school appear to care about how fit you are?").

Surveys complete, we spent the summer poring over the data, crunching numbers and clicking through spreadsheets until we came up with the following list of the 20 fittest and 20 fattest colleges in America, as determined by the people who would know best-the students attending the schools.