By Kortni Robinson
Rumor has it that students gain 15 pounds during their first year of college. Hence, the frightening term: freshman 15.
After speaking with experts and students, I got to the bottom of this terrible myth.
Chandler Cheak, a first-year kinesiology major at Texas Tech, gained about 5 pounds before heading home for Christmas break. She didn’t think that would happen to her and blames the weight gain on dorm life.
Natalie Morales/ TheHub@TTU
“My mom always said like ‘make sure you watch out for the freshman 15’, and I was like ‘I’m not gonna gain that,'” she said.
A resident of Chitwood Hall who often visits Sam’s West, Cheak said there are few healthy options. Sometimes, the ones available are not the most appealing.
In addition, she said, college changes your normal habits.
“I think it’s the drinking,” Cheak said. “After you’ve been drinking all night, you’re gonna go to Sam’s, which is open until 2 a.m. and get some food.”
Maddie Holman is a junior nursing student at Texas Tech who also gained weight after starting college.
“I gained 65 pounds in college,” Holman said. “You know they say like freshman 15, but this was way worse.”
Holman went to the doctor for tests and was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. But she still believes her weight gain had to do with some of the freedom college teases you with.
“I was eating out, not even conscious of what I was taking in,” she said.
A study at Ohio State University in 2013 showed that fewer than 10 percent of first-year students gained 15 pounds or more. The average weight gain was only 3 pounds. Some Texas Tech professors agree the freshman 15 phenomenon is a myth.
Debra Reed, a professor in the department of nutritional sciences, said studies on the topic show different results.
“There are some students who gain more than 15 pounds, and some who don’t gain any,” she said.
The problem is misinformation about nutrition, Reed said. One of her graduate students found college students’ estimates of their daily caloric needs ranged from 200 to10,000.
“With that lack of knowledge, it’s not hard to understand why there could be potential weight gain in college,” Reed said.
Watch this video story to learn more about why students do or don’t gain weight in college.
Stay tuned for more articles from Kortni Robinson about fact or fiction at Texas Tech University.
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