Every student has heard the expression, the Freshman 15—the 15 pounds a typical student gains in their first year of university.
A quick Google search of “freshman 15” brings up countless articles on how to avoid putting on this freshman fat, including ones that tell students to cut out sugary foods and stop stress eating.
Even though research is plentiful, the results inconsistently determine the amount of weight a first-year student can expect to gain in university.
So, do students actually gain 15 pounds, or is the Freshman 15 just a myth?
Only a few pounds
A study for the National Institute of Health (NIH) by Nicole L. Mihalopoulos, Peggy Auinger, and Jonathan D. Klein discovered that first-year students do gain a few pounds in their freshman year.
“Our results suggest that college freshmen do gain weight,” Mihalopoulos reported in her study. “However, the legendary Freshman 15 was rare among respondents in this study.”
They found that on average, first years only gained 2.7 pounds during their time away at school.
A study conducted on behalf of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) also found that students only gain approximately three to four pounds, not the rumored 15.
“Weight gain occurred before November of the first academic year and was maintained as the year progressed,” according to the NCBI study.
Researchers attributed this weight fluctuation to “measures of self-esteem, eating habits, interpersonal relationships, exercise patterns, and disordered eating behaviors both in their senior year of high school and either 3, 6, or 9 months into college.”
Though these numbers do not reflect the 15 pound myth, the NIH study said freshmen gain weight at much quicker rates than the rest of the population, and added that “if such a rate were sustained for several years, many of the students would become obese.”
A typical first-year student
Lindsay Thurley, a second-year Carleton linguistics student, said she attempted to avoid the path to those extra
freshman pounds during her first year of university.
Thurley decided to start off the year on the right foot—a running shoe clad foot, that is.
“I fell in love with the gym right off the bat, which kept me in pretty good shape throughout the whole year,” she said.
Thurley said she maintained her weight by a combination of exercise and healthy eating.
But she admitted she fell victim to the typical habits that usually lead to rapid weight gain among first-year students, including an increased alcohol intake.
“I wasn’t making as much [athletic] progress as I liked with drinking habits being a factor,” Thurley said. “Waking up the next morning after a night of drinking would affect my performance in the gym the next day—if I could even manage to go.”
Many first-years spend their weekends out late at parties, and where there are parties, there is often alcohol.
According to Jane Skapinker, a registered dietician at Carleton’s dining hall, alcohol contributes excess, empty calories to one’s daily caloric intake.
“On top of the food they’re eating, students are taking in a lot of excess calories that are not really contributing to the nutrients they need for the day,” she said. “One shot of standard alcohol can contribute anywhere from 100 to 150 calories.”
Skapinker added that students often indulge in a late-night takeout order or snack on unhealthy food after they have been drinking.
“I’ve seen that when students are drinking . . . they tend to opt for more energy-dense, less nutrient-dense choices,” she said. “It tends to happen late at night before bed, after drinking large amounts, and the choices they are opting for more often are fast-food choices that don’t tend to be the higher quality food choices that we want [students] to be having all the time.”
Of course, partying isn’t the only reason freshmen are staying up late.
Thurley said she found herself staying up late to finish assignments, well past the closing time of Carleton’s dining hall. As a result, she said she often ordered pizza and bought food from Oasis, Carleton’s late-night fast-food café, for dinner.
“Students are studying late, sometimes they’re making food choices that aren’t optimal . . . just to keep their energy levels up,” Skapinker said. “They can opt for higher sugar snacks, that similar to alcohol, don’t contribute calories that give them a lot of nutrients to function.”
In other words, more hours awake could mean more opportunities for calorie intake.
Factors contributing to weight gain
Lauren D. Asarnow, a researcher from the University of California’s department of psychology, found that later bedtimes and less sleep can led to gaining 0.035 kilograms per minute of sleep deprivation.
Over a semester, this number can quickly add up to five pounds or more, she wrote in her study on linking bedtimes to body mass index.
Stacey Simon, a researcher at the University of Colorado’s School of Medicine, also found in a study that after a night with reduced sleep, teenagers found fatty foods more appealing than after a good night’s sleep.
This can be tempting for students whose campus cafeterias offer unhealthy breakfast options.
Carleton’s dining hall has a waffle station every morning with whipped cream, and sometimes features pancakes or crepes. These sugary and fatty options may be enticing for a student whose lack of sleep has left them feeling tired and drowsy, and want a sugary pick-me-up to start their day.
Skapinker said everyone’s body copes with stress differently, and for some, stress-eating habits can lead to weight gain.
“In general people tend to underestimate the contribution of your mind and your hormones to . . . your metabolism and your eating behaviours,” she said.
“There is some science behind the contribution of stress to weight gain because there is a lot of hormones involved with the stress reaction in the body, and so it can for some people contribute to weight gain in the body, especially in certain areas of the body,” Skapinker added.
But not all students eat while stressed.
That is true for Rayan Ghadieh, a fourth-year University of Ottawa student who said she lost 13 pounds in her first year of university.
“Going into first year, the transition from high school to university was a really big slap in the face for me. I wasn’t expecting that much stress on my shoulders,” Ghadieh said. “I just felt like I didn’t have time to eat.”
“I heard about [the freshman 15] and I just couldn’t believe that was an actual thing because my situation was the complete opposite,” she added.
Ghadieh also said she loses her appetite when she is stressed and admits she experienced a disordered eating pattern.
“It’s like I have so much ambition to do well in university that I just completely neglect my own health,” she said. “So I get to a point where I’ll do anything—I’ll avoid eating to save some time to study or to do an assignment. I’d rather finish an assignment or start on something than eat.”
Michael Emond, an associate professor of psychology at Laurentian University, said 40 per cent of people under-eat when they are stressed.
Emond said our body prepares to use energy in situations when they feel anxious or nervous, an indicator of the “fight or flight” system that unconsciously rules our hormonal and digestive systems.
In essence, our bodies know that a dangerous situation (in the past, fighting a bear, but today, finishing an essay an hour before it is due) is not a spectacular time to be snacking.
The other side of weight gain
Even though Thurley said she has a very confident and healthy self-image, many students enter university with self-confidence issues or eating disorders and actually lose weight—a “reverse freshman 15,” per se.
A study by the University of Michigan revealed that over half of freshman students had become more self-conscious about their bodies during their year at school, and that some were going to extreme measures to lose body mass.
“Ten percent were purging in some way—vomiting and/or using laxatives, diuretics or diet pills,” the study reported.
The study also found that 90 per cent of all students feared gaining the freshman 15.
In the study “The Freshman 15: A Critical Time for Obesity Intervention or Media Myth,” Jay L. Zagorsky and Patricia K. Smith wrote that university itself may not necessarily be the reason for the weight gain among young adults.
“Compared to same-age non-college attendees, the typical freshman gains only an additional half-pound,” according to the study.
According to Skapinker, students face stressors, like adapting to a new environment, new schedules, and living away from home, which can lead to weight gain.
“I think the change in environment can contribute to weight gain, but it’s all about adapting in a health promoting way and making those healthier choices when they are available to you,” she said.
Create healthy habits
Skapinker said staying healthy is all about being mindful of the dietary choices you are making.
“Choosing indulgent, energy-dense options very frequently may contribute to weight gain over time,” she said.
“In general, it’s just about making sure you have a good balance of things—making sure you’re giving your body what it needs, but also satisfying the desires that you have with reasonable habits, and listening to your body,” Skapinker added.
She also said students should try filling their plates with options they may not be used to having.
“I see students all the time steer away from certain stations at the dining hall because it’s not something they’re used to eating,” Skapinker said. “Don’t steer away from things like the vegan bar . . . You can always have a plant-centric plate and experiment with different options, and they can be just as satiating as starting your meal with an [animal] protein.”
According to Skapinker, weight gain is usually complimented with bad behaviours, so keeping your body healthy is all about making informed choices.
“Instilling good habits into [students], rather than telling them what choices to make over others, is what really makes the difference in the long run,” Skapinker said. “By helping students and giving them the skills to make healthy choices, then hopefully over time . . . the freshman 15 won’t even be something that we speak of anymore.”
