Dancing is, to say the least, exhausting.  Every hour of general dancing can burn upwards of 500 calories. Considering people will be dancing for over 20 hours (taking into account breaks and dining times), if people were to go non-stop, they could potentially burn 10,000 calories from dancing alone over the course of Dance Marathon.

Of course, the prospect of people fully dancing for the entire time is insane, so let’s assume that people will take mini-breaks that add up to half of the total dancing time.  This leaves us with ten hours of grooving to the beat, or 5,000 calories.  

Okay, that’s a bit more reasonable. The sedentary 19 to 20 year old male and female use up about 2,600 and 2,000 calories per day, respectively, so let’s add these values over the course of 30 hours onto the 5,000 additional calories burned by burning up the dance floor.  The grand totals are about 8,250 calories for men and 7,500 for women.  

Let’s add some perspective to the amount of food it would take to keep up with the DM routine, shall we?  

You would need to eat about 15.25 Big Macs if you’re a man or about 14 Big Macs if you’re a woman.

You would need to eat 55 Twinkies if you’re a man or 50 if you’re a woman.

2,750 chocolate M&M’s if you’re a man or 2,500 if you’re a woman.

You could get about 20 meal exchange MOD pizzas if you’re a man, or 18 if you’re a woman.

To follow along with our 30-hour Dance Marathon 2019 coverage, check out our other stories here: http://alpha.northbynorthwestern.com/tag/dm-2019/