By Emily Schoch | Staff Writer
As first-year students settle into college life, many encounter an unexpected challenge: the so-called “freshman 15.”
This well-known term suggests that students gain weight during their freshman year of college due to new routines, dining hall temptations and late-night study sessions.
Is the freshman 15 a myth, or is there truth to this phenomenon? Stanley Wilfong, senior lecturer and program coordinator for nutrition sciences, said the freshman 15 is not a guarantee for all first-year students.
“About two thirds of people will gain some weight. It’s rare that people actually gain 15 pounds [their] freshman year, and it’s only around 5% that tend to gain that much,” Wilfong said. “The average weight gain — depending on the study — is 2 1/2 pounds on average, up to about 6 pounds per average for the whole first year. So the freshman 15 is kind of a myth.”
Wilfong unpacked several reasons why weight gain and food-related disorders are common among first-year college students.
“There’s a lot of social eating that goes on with it. There’s also stress-eating that goes on. Some people, when they get stressed, they don’t eat. Other people get stressed and they eat a whole lot,” Wilfong said.
A large reason why first-year students tend to gain weight is that many opportunities to get connected with community around campus revolve around food. The pull of connection pushes freshmen to consume more meals than they would normally.
Stress can also be a contributing factor to weight fluctuation. Another common reason for weight gain is alcohol consumption, Wilfong said.
“Folks don’t know, but alcohol has almost as many calories per gram as fat does. So you think about your drinking alcohol in terms of calories; it’s about a shot of whiskey is about the same [amount] of calories as a shot of drinking straight olive oil,” Wilfong said.
Alcohol may be liquid, but it has calories nonetheless, therefore causing weight gain. Another misconception is that protein will help people lose weight and gain muscle.
“Protein is calories. If you have more than you need, it’ll get converted into calories, and protein turns into fat. So protein does not make you grow muscles,” Wilfong said. “Resistance training gets you to grow muscles, [though] you need protein to support that.”
Wilfong also said that eating disorders are extremely common among first-year students, and a large part of it has to do with social media.
“They listen to influencers online that don’t know what they’re talking about and it tends to drive eating disorders. Eating disorders are rampant on every college campus,” Wilfong said.
The term freshman 15 may influence paranoia among first-year students, causing them to go to great lengths to prevent weight gain, Wilfong said.
“There are no good foods. There’s no bad foods. There’s no healthy foods, and there’s no unhealthy foods. You have healthy diets and you have unhealthy diets,” Wilfong.
According to Wilfong, when students limit themselves on what the can and can’t eat, it commonly drives them to an eating disorder known as anorexia.
The Peer Nutrition advisor program is a free way for students to tackle weight gain, eating disorders and overall help their general health with others.
“[It’s] junior and senior nutrition students under the guidance of a registered dietitian like myself, who give basic nutrition information about how to navigate grocery stores [and] how to navigate the dining halls,” Wilfong said.
Leigh Greathouse, associate professor of nutrition sciences, gave tips and tricks on how to combat weight gain during freshman year of college. Greathouse touched on the importance of finding an exercise buddy, joining a team, planning ahead for meals and prioritizing building healthy relationships.
“It’s very susceptible for freshmen who maybe are not getting involved in those activities to have weight gain. Self care goes by the wayside,” Greenhouse said. “[That’s] eating a good, healthy meal, exercising regularly, taking care of mental health [and] being social with other people. If you don’t have a good idea of how to put that in place, you’re just going to be susceptible to your environment.”
