2008 Woodie Awards
College freshmen trying to avoid extra pounds
Issue date: 11/21/02 Section: Lifestyles
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Sometimes, it's only 5. Sometimes, heaven forbid, it's 40.
No matter the exact number, many college freshmen are discovering that they'll have a little extra baggage to take home for Thanksgiving: unwanted pounds that creep up with as much inevitability as final exams.
"It's a real issue," says Marilyn Yourdon, director of student health at Wichita State University.
At Kansas State University, "I know that it's a huge concern, especially for the girls," says Dianna Schalles, nutritionist and health educator at Lafene Health Center.
Researchers at Tufts University, known for its work in nutrition, studied the eating and nutritional habits of college students for four years and found that weight gain during the freshman year is common. They said the average gain was about 6 pounds for men and 4.5 for women.
Yourdon and Schalles say the extra pounds can be blamed on a number of factors:
* Meals become irregular as students try to juggle classes, jobs, social lives and studying. Missed meals may be replaced by binge eating later in the day.
* Late-night snacking seems to go with late-night studying. "To stay awake, you had to snack. Or if you didn't drink coffee, then you snacked. And even if you did drink coffee, you snacked," Yourdon says.
* Exercise levels decrease. Students who were high school football players--and eating like them--suddenly aren't even participating in pickup games but haven't changed their eating patterns.
* The way dorm cafeterias are set up leads some students to take an all-you-can-eat approach to meals.
* Eating with groups of people encourages eating more, sort of like the effect of a big family Thanksgiving dinner.
To break the cycle, Schalles as a nutritionist and Yourdon as a nurse try to encourage small changes and moderation.
Rather than talking about weight gain or weight loss, Yourdon talks about nutrition basics and learning to read and pay attention to nutrition labels.
Schalles often has students keep a food journal. "The food journals really help them to become aware."
Often, she says, the journals will show that a student is consuming 1,000 to 1,500 calories a day from pop, or not thinking about the calories that come from a quick stop at a fast-food restaurant.
Alcohol also can add weight. It has 7 calories per gram, almost as many as fat. A student may skip a meal to "bank" calories, Schalles says, then have several beers, followed by binge snacking to deal with a case of the munchies.
Schalles recommends that students carry "smart" snacks in their backpacks and plan ahead to make healthy choices at meals.
Yourdon and Schalles encourage students to exercise in whatever way they can.
But students don't have to go to a gym, the experts say. "Even small things, like parking farther away, can add up," Schalles says. So can walking to classes at a brisker pace.
Regular exercise can make up for many eating mistakes, says Yourdon.