First Year College Means Weight Gain
Excerpt By Steven Reinberg, HealthDay

The so-called Freshman 15, the mythic weight gain that entering collegians encounter, is not a myth after all, a new study contends.

Freshmen add an average of four pounds in just 12 weeks, researchers say. And the main culprit is the all-you-can-eat campus dining halls.

The more often students eat in these dining halls, the greater their weight gain, says researcher David A. Levitsky, a Cornell University professor of nutritional science and psychology.

In fact, eating both breakfast and lunch in dining halls accounted for 20 percent of the weight gain among students in the study.

On average, students gained about 0.3 pounds a week -- almost 11 times more than the average weight gain among 17- and 18-year-olds and almost 20 times more than the average weight gain among adults in the United States, the study says.

The researchers measured the weight of 68 Cornell students at the beginning of the semester, and 60 of those students at semester's end. Students also completed questionnaires that asked about eating habits, exercise and sleeping habits.

In addition to dining hall meals, another strong predictor of weight gain was the consumption of snack foods, particularly late at night, Levitsky says.

Overall, students consumed about 174 more calories a day than they burned. Although that may seem like a small amount, Levitsky says, it has a significant cumulative effect on weight gain. He presented the study findings at the recent annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behaviors, in Groningen, the Netherlands.

"The more food that we put in front of people, the more they eat," Levitsky says, adding that previous research has shown that people are very sensitive to the food that's put in front of them.

With the combination of ever-present vending machines and all-you-can-eat dining halls, which Levitsky says are relatively new at Cornell, "the net effect is that students gain weight," he says.

But the real importance of the study, Levitsky says, is that the results can be used as a model to test theories about the increase in obesity in the United States and around the world.

"So far we haven't come up with one treatment or advice to give the public to curb this increase in obesity," he says.

The researchers plan to test another group of freshmen this fall to see if they can stem the weight gain.

"One technique is a weighing technique, where students are weighed every day to determine whether there is a trend in weight gain and make them aware of their increasing weight," Levitsky says.

"We are also testing the ability to teach students about appropriate portion sizes," he adds. "Maybe, if they have an idea of what they are supposed to eat, then they might curb weight gain."

"Students have to learn how to eat in these all-you-can-eat dining halls, and they must learn what the consequences are if they have no control."

Levitsky believes the slow increases in weight that are being seen throughout society are caused by subtle environmental changes. "We have to be sensitive to these changes if we are going to control our weight," he says.

Richard M. Clark, a nutrition professor at the University of Connecticut, agrees that the "freshman 15" is real for some students, but he maintains that many factors influence eating.

More information

To learn more about any health risks associated with your own weight, check out "Assessing Your Weight," provided by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. For information on obesity, visit the Web site of the American Obesity Association.

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