Freshman 15 weight gain a myth, study says

Feeling guilty about last night’s 4 a.m. family size Wawa mac and cheese? Don’t be — a recent study from Ohio State and Michigan-Dearborn universities proclaims the notorious freshman 15 a “myth.”

According to the study, freshman women tend to gain around 3.1 pounds while men see an increase of about 3.5 pounds. Furthermore only 10 percent of college freshmen will fall victim to 15 pounds or more of saddle-baggage.

The study focused on about 7,500 people who were surveyed at the ages of 13 and 17 and then each year of college.

“Actually, I lost 15 pounds,” Wharton and Engineering sophomore Karim El Sayyad said.

El Sayyad was not the only student at Penn to turn the freshman year convention on its head.

College freshman Laura Krasovitzky called freshman 15 “the silliest myth ever.” She believes if students are irresponsible about their eating habits and buy “junk food from the vending machines at one in the morning,” they will gain weight.

Michele Ozer, another College freshman, agreed that it was “easy to give in to temptation” but that “most people manage to take care of themselves.”

Reflecting upon the study, Student Health Service Director Evelyn Wiener wrote in an email, “Many college students worry about weight gain that may not be significant.” The consensus among most students is that this sort of severe weight gain is uncommon at Penn.

While some students didn’t see the scale budge, others encountered weight loss freshman year.

Like El Sayyad, College sophomore Chelsea Morris lost 15 pounds her first semester because she “hated the dining halls,” but when she discovered campusfood.com her second semester, she “gained it all back.” In retrospect, Morris thinks that “for most people, Wawa and stress definitely account for the freshman 15.”

“When freshmen are thrown into a completely new environment, with much less structure than high school, it is a recipe for alterations in eating habits,” Lucy Faulconbridge — an assistant professor at the Perelman School of Medicine’s Center for Weight and Eating Disorders — wrote in an email.

She pointed to “making new friendship groups, trying to do well in classes and being away from home” as stresses that can affect eating.

Wiener maintains that the resources of both SHS and Bon Appétit Dining allow students who want to diet or ensure that they are eating healthy to consult a nutritionist or a dietician.

Nevertheless, Faulconbridge finds that “there is something about the college environment that makes it more difficult to stay lean.”

“It doesn’t help that [Allegro Pizza] is a warm late-night pitstop for drunk kids in the winter who are stumbling on their way back to the Quad,” College sophomore Allison Perelman said.

The study also found a connection between heavy drinking and weight gain, not only because alcohol is caloric, but also because “it lowers your inhibitions so that it’s harder to resist tempting foods.”

Another major culprit behind weight gain in college is lack of sleep. Faulconbrige explained, “The hunger hormone, ghrelin, is increased in people who are sleep-deprived, as though the body is compensating for being tired by consuming more calories.” Morris added that the “need to be awake 20 hours of the day to study” can cause you eat a lot more.

Some students didn’t see an extra 15 pounds here or there as problematic. One College sophomore — who didn’t want to speak for his entire fraternity — took pride in the freshman 15 “because it weighs down the freshman male’s general ego and bolsters the necessary love handles that we fraternity stars love.”

The secret to avoiding the ominous 15, according to Falcounbridge, is to sleep seven to eight hours a night and exercise three to four times per week. She also suggested that students “drink only in moderation and eat a balanced diet.”

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