Freshman 15?
Being sent off to college for the first time comes with a lot of expected and unexpected changes. Generous meal plans, yay! Binge drinking, woohoo! Condo-style dorm rooms, I’ll take one! More stress, ummm, do I have to?? With all of these changes, welcome or unwelcome, one of the first horizons to expand in college is the waistline.
Unfortunately, if rapid weight gain in the fun years of early adulthood isn’t bad enough, it is also correlated with obesity later in life. In short, these are formative years in more ways than we think. But does providence predestine us for the plumping from the “freshman 15”? According to a recent study, the answer is no.
First, we don’t all gain 15. In fact, the average weight gain upon entry to college is only seven pounds. Seven! Good news, right? Well, not exactly. Seven pounds of weight gain in one calendar year is still SEVEN times what would be considered a healthy weight gain. And remember that whole “correlated with obesity later in life” thing? Yeah. So, before we start celebrating that 15 pounds of gain isn’t the destination, we need to remember that seven is still way too much.
So, with all that in mind, the advice for new coeds is the same for anyone going through a major life transition. Keep to a plan, don’t eat whatever, whenever. Keep your stress in check, maybe even reduce it with a great new yoga class at the college rec center. Don’t slack on sleep. Sleep is the key to restoring your body, keeping cravings at bay, and broadening your horizons where you want them broadest: in your brain.
Rosenbloom C. (2016, Sep 6). You don’t have to gain the ‘freshman 15’ — or even the freshman seven. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/you-dont-have-to-gain-the-freshman-15–or-even-the-freshman-seven/2016/09/01/ec20bf72-6ebf-11e6-8533-6b0b0ded0253_story.html
Vadeboncoeur, C., Townsend, N., & Foster, C. (2015). A meta-analysis of weight gain in first year university students: is freshman 15 a myth? BMC Obesity, 2, 22. http://doi.org/10.1186/s40608-015-0051-7