"The Freshman 15"

Abhinav Sawhney

The transition from high school to college brings with it a lot of challenges. One of which is to remain fit and avoid the “freshman 15.” For those that may not be aware of this phrase, the “freshman 15” is used to describe the weight gained by freshman students in their first semester of college.

On moving to college most freshman students are witnessing dramatic changes in their lives. The biggest change for most of them is moving away from their parents. Which means you have to make all your decisions on your own, including what you should eat and what you shouldn’t. Since this choice is now on the students, more often than not they tend to eat what tastes good as opposed to what is healthy and nutritionally balanced.

Another reason which doesn’t help the cause too much is the inconsistent meal timings. Due to a different schedule of morning and afternoon classes every day, it becomes very hard for students to eat at a certain time consistently. This also leads to unwanted weight gain. On a certain day a student may have a schedule packed with morning classes, and hence his or her first meal maybe at 1 in the afternoon. A lot of the time students tend to eat junk food in the small intervals between their classes. All these factors collectively lead to the “freshman 15.” Studies show that freshman gain an average of 4.2 pounds the first 3 months of college.

So how can the “freshman 15” be avoided? One of the most important things to remain fit is to eat at consistent timings. Although this might be tough for college students due to their busy schedules, it must be done to remain healthy. One must also avoid munching on things constantly throughout the day. What this does is, makes your body develop the habit of being fed all the time hence increasing the food intake.

It is also very important for freshman to make a working out routine. Even if it’s just thirty minutes day,one must visit the gym and burn the calories that have been consumed throughout the day. At the end of the day it would not be wrong to conclude by saying the “freshman 15” can indeed be avoided, but only if the freshmen put in an effort to avoid it.