'Freshman 15' remains a concern

But campus health workers say the collegiate weight problem has some new twists

By Donna Taketa
The Collegian

Don’t blame the bathroom scale if you’re topping off at 10 pounds over your usual weight.

Consider that the difficulty buttoning your jeans is from your widening hips and not the dryer shrinking your favorite denim.

If you’ve noticed an expanding midsection since enrolling at college, you’re not alone. Students gain more than debt during college; they also tend to gain weight.

“Initially, I lost weight my freshman year,” said junior Kat Gaoiran who lives in the dorms. “But then I gained it back, and more.”

The propensity for college weight gain is often referred to as the “Freshman 15.” However, it is a problem unique not just to first year students.

“The weight gain will mostly happen during that first or second year for people and then stabilize,” said Stephanie Morris, the registered dietician at Fresno State’s Health Center. “Stress means that they’re going to eat more than they should.”

Morris said she meets with about 50 to 60 students a year who gain more then 15 pounds.

“Actually 15 pounds is pretty lucky. Some people will do 20 or 30 pounds while they’re here,” she said.

“Sometimes if there’s a big life shift there’ll be a weight gain. A lot of people come in with deer in the headlights look saying, ‘I have put on 15, 20 or even 30 pounds since I’ve been here, what am I doing?’”

On average, freshmen gain four pounds during their first 12 weeks of college, according to a 2004 study by Cornell University. At that rate, a freshman’s weight gain would total about 15 pounds by year’s end.

Freshman S’kara Cooley said she has gained six pounds, but isn’t concerned about it yet.

Weight gain stems from eating more calories then the body burns. “People eat more than they need, that’s the bottom line,” said Sandra Witte, Fresno State professor and dietetics program coordinator. “It’s behavior that’s the problem, not the food.”

Other errors students make include eating the wrong foods at the wrong times and decreasing physical exercise.

“I’ve gained 20 pounds,” said sophomore Aaron Stillmacer. “At home there were balanced meals. This is more like a buffet,” he said of the food at the residence dining hall.

Stillmacer said in high school he was involved with sports, but now that he’s at college all he has time for is school.

“It could be, ‘I can’t have one more demand on my time’ so they don’t exercise,” Morris said. “I think the way we go about it, and the way our society pushes exercise, is it is another obligation, another stress, rather than something that is manageable and reasonable.”

It doesn’t take exotic diets or extreme measures to lose weight, Morris said. Often times she said students are skeptical of the minor adjustments she recommends. Recommendations like a half-hour walk in the morning and evening, healthy food choices, and drinking non-caloric beverages.

“People that are gaining weight typically are getting 1100 to 1500 calories in some cases from beverages,” Morris said. She compared Starbucks to a milkshake, with 300 to 400 calories each.

She said one woman who followed this suggestion lost 26 pounds in a semester, but with some added exercise as well.

“I lead up towards making healthy food choices and just basically a balanced diet. I don’t put anyone on a severe calorie restriction,” she said.

Another mistake busy students make is eating infrequently, therefore causing overeating when they finally get around to it.

“Waiting. That’s a big thing people do,” Morris said. “They skip breakfast, skip lunch, have a little snack and they come home and Hoover this huge meal, and go to sleep, or surf the Net or watch TV. There’s bad timing.”

Staying in shape and eating right doesn’t just stoke our vanity; it is also critical for an active body and a lifetime of wellness, Witte said.

“There is very, very, good data that shows a definite correlation between weight and health consequences such as increased risks of cancer, hypertension and more,” she said.

Witte is also skeptical of the so-called Freshman 15.

“I’m not sure if it’s even a reality anymore,” Witte said. “More and more students are coming into college weighing more than is recommended as it is.

She estimated the number of overweight adolescents has tripled in the last 20 years.

Some of those incoming college students choose to live in the dorms and eat in the residence dining hall.

Relying on dorm food can have its ups and downs, according to students. Those who dislike the food said they don’t eat as much, and therefore have lost weight. Others say that since it’s their main source of sustenance they have to eat it.

“I’m a picky eater and the food here just doesn’t suit me,” said dorm resident Janice Taylor. She finds herself snacking between meals, but has still managed to lose weight.

On the other hand, student Kat Gaoiran said she attributes most of her gain from choosing sweets over more wholesome foods.

“We go for the sweets instead of the fried vegetables,” she said with a laugh of the dining hall menu.

Designing the dorm menu is the responsibility of Deborah Guill, senior manager of the RDH.

“Kids come here and treat it as a buffet. I mean if I ate at Hometown Buffet every day, yeah, I’d gain five pounds,” Guill said. “It’s very important for people to take responsibility and maintain self-discipline.”

For students who want to eat healthy there are many items to choose from, Guill said. Nutrition information for the dishes is also available for students. “I hear a lot of complaints about the deep-fried food, yet chicken tenders are still the most popular item,” she said.

Guill said the dorm menu is constantly adding new dishes to keep the food selection interesting.

Sophomore dorm resident Kim Hudson has noticed an improvement in the vegetables since last year.

“Last year the vegetables were just nasty. They were really soggy or covered in grease,” Hudson said, adding more often then not she finds herself uninterested by the selection.

“I’ve lost maybe five pounds, most likely because at home my mom cooked and she put the food in front of me and I’d eat what she gave me,” she said.

Generally most of the students Morris sees about weight problems live away from home. But living at home doesn’t create an immunity weight gain either, she said.

Junior Kou Vue lives at home and said he’s gained 20 pounds from school stress. He admits he even has a membership to a gym but it’s not often used.

“For me, I used to play sports. Now it’s just school and work,” said senior Vanessa Hernandez. She attributes most of her 15-pound gain to her sophomore year of college.

On the whole, Morris is pleased with the health consciousness she has observed in her 18 months at Fresno State.

Students come in to see her not necessarily because they dislike how they look, but because they are concerned about diabetes, cancer or high cholesterol in their families, she said.

However, Morris said a little weight gain isn’t unusual for people as they age into their twenties and thirties.

“I honestly wouldn’t worry about five or six pounds,” Morris said. “Nobody’s probably as tiny as they were when they were a kid.”

She welcomes anyone who is concerned about his or her health to come see her. Sessions can be as frequent or infrequent as the student desires.

“The whole prejudice out there is that young people don’t care about their health. I just don’t see that, at least at this place,” Morris said. “A lot of them know what they need to do, they just need the occasional motivation and assurance they’re doing the right thing.”

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