Freshman Fifteen: Fact or Fiction?

In case you were wondering, yes, it is true: the infamous ‘freshman fifteen’ is nothing but fiction! The old adage that you will gain fifteen pounds during your first year of college is a myth, plain and simple. Most students only gain from two to four pounds says Jay Zagorsky, a researcher with Ohio State University’s Center for Human Resource Research.

His study, published in the Social Science Quarterly journal, unearthed that no more than 10 percent of college freshman gain fifteen or more pounds and around 25 percent of freshmen reported that they experienced weight loss, not weight gain, during their first year of college. These scientists convey the message that starting college has little to do with the weight gain – it’s the fact that new college students are setting off into the world as young adults for the first time that is the culprit.
Yes, the weight gain is from the evolution the teen encounters when going from one life stage to another. A scholarly lifestyle requires less physical activity and more sedentary lifestyle practices than a teenage lifestyle, which often includes a lot of sport. When Zagorsky and associates conducted the study, they evaluated approximately 7,400 students around the country and surveyed these people in personal interviews. Among the questions the research team asked, respondents were quizzed about their weight and college status each year.

“It’s worth noting that while there’s this focus on weight gain among freshmen, we found that one in four actually lost weight,” Zagorsky said. Some of the factors the research team evaluated included whether the students lived in dormitory housing, if they went to school full or part time, who pursued a two-year degree and who was going for a four-year degree, who went to a private institution and who chose a public one, and who was a heavy drinker of alcohol. Apparently, none of these factors made a noteworthy difference in terms of weight gain, with the exception of excessive alcohol consumption. Apparently, drinking alcohol is one of the main reasons many people gain weight, collegiate or not, but new college students often experiment with binge drinking as they find their social footing and go through the stress of their studies.
 
Zagorsky further explained that it was of particular significance that the dormitory lifestyle did not make freshmen gain weight, as was once alleged. It has been assumed that the dorm environment encourages weight gain during the freshman year, typically due to poor "ramen noodle based" eating habits that college students in dorms are said to have. What was found in this study was that young adults who are college students do gain weight steadily over the course of their college careers, as do other young adults who don’t attend college but go from a teen to an adult. For most young women, the gain is between seven and nine pounds, while young men gain around twelve pounds.

Also, the researchers inspected what happened to these college students after graduation. It was uncovered that each scholar gained around 1.5 pounds per year during the first four years after college. Zagorsky shared that, "College students don't face an elevated risk of obesity because they gain a large amount of weight during their freshman year”.