Aug 21 2006
Avoiding the ‘Freshman 15′
Remember going to college for the first time? Soft serve ice cream with every meal, nightly pizza study breaks, drinks of various colors and calorie counts, mac and cheese anytime, and care packages of goodies from home. Ah, the good life. All of that added up to what was lovingly called the Freshman 15; referring to the 15 or so pounds usually gained by incoming college freshman.
Universities are recognizing this problem and are offering programs to help:
“The patterns and the habits that students get into in the first two to three months of school is what tends to carry them through the rest of their time on campus,” said Jen Ketterly, nutrition and fitness coordinator for campus health services at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
At nearby Duke University, the private college of about 6,000 undergraduates offers an interactive nutrition workshop for freshmen with eating problems. It includes tips for quick, healthy meals in the dorm, and how to eat the right way in an all-you-can eat dining hall.
Not all freshman gain the weight, some go the other way:
The problem isn’t always weight gain: Some new students lose weight because they’re no longer getting three meals a day from Mom and Dad.
Of course, it might be the cafeteria offerings that are the problem:
“Many kids tell me they stop eating meat and chicken and hardly ever eat fish when they come to college because of how it looks in the dining halls,” Quatromoni said. “Some eat very few fruits and vegetables when they go out on their own.”
Well, maybe excersie is the answer:
Even though all full-time students have access to the David Pottruck Health and Fitness Center, data have shown that many don’t take advantage of it.
Villari said the 2004 survey showed that about 25 percent of Penn students get no exercise at all.
But she added that students’ weight tends to become more stable after the first year of college.
Basically, good eating habits have to be extended into college to become part of daily life. This establishes a trend that will continue throughout adulthood. The lesson for parents is to teach your children what healthy eating is and to allow them the ability to make healthy choices before they are off on their own.
Others blogging:
- Back-to-School Means Adjusting Kids’ ‘Sleep Clocks’
- Dorm Food, Part II
- Thanks for going to such lengths to save my life, doc
- Thursday Thoughts: My Personal Food History
- Universities aim to avoid ‘Freshman 15′
