Books, Stress, Pizza: A Recipe For The 'Freshman 15'?
First-year college students typically gain about five pounds. "It's not exactly the 'freshman 15,' " says psychologist Susan Albers of the Cleveland Clinic, author of Eating Mindfully. But, she says, five pounds can lead to more weight gain when students fall into bad habits.
Students are most vulnerable in the first semester, as they're adjusting to the freedoms of dorm life and the all-you-can-eat meal plans. But a simple awareness of weight seems to go a long way, according to a few recent studies.
Stepping On The Scale
Researchers at Cornell University put scales in the dorm rooms of a group of freshmen and asked them to weigh themselves each morning. Then researchers graphed the students' daily reading s to show the trends over weeks.
"The freshmen that we gave the scales to didn't gain any weight," says David Levitsky, a professor of Psychology and Nutritional Sciences.