How to Gain Weight: Go To College
The "Freshman 15" is no joke - although should really be called the freshman 8.
More studies confirm that weight gain during college years is significant - particularly among males.
[...] students gained an average of 7.8 pounds during the freshman year. More than one-third gained 10 pounds or more, and one-fifth piled on 15 or more. (src)
During their second year at university/college - the weight gain continued. The reasons are fairly obvious - a culture of bad food, no exercise and excessive alcohol leads to a bigger waistline.
But what about younger children packing on the pounds? Theories are being thrown around empty soda cans, with one group of scientists pointing the finger at Mac and Cheese.
[...] kids of any group would scarf down whatever size portion of mac and cheese they were served, and the amount consumed did not change even if one plate was richer than another. (src)It's all quite elementary - we eat too much and don't exercise - but the real question is why? Why do we no longer have control over our stomachs, and why do we no longer know when enough is enough?
Has gluttony become a virtue rather than a vice?
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I remember my roommate at college that first year. They gained 25 pounds! We were on the all-you-can-eat cafeteria plan and they got their money's worth!
ReplyI lived at home during college, but even so, the only decent food in the whole place was at the macrobiotic restaurant. I survived on brown rice with boiled vegetables for quite a while.
ReplyI was one of those that gained "15 or more" pounds during my freshman year. I managed to do that by eating nothing but crap for about a semester. We had a cafeteria with very good food and I frequently ate cheeseburgers, ice cream, fries, cookies, etc., for lunch. I snacked whenever I did homework and I managed to gain 30 lbs in one semester. I decided right then that I needed to lose that 30 lbs and more and get healthier. I stopped snacking on chips and pretzels and swapped them for baby carrots. I started eating salads, yogurt, fruit, etc...no more burgers and fries. By the time I finished my freshman year, I had lost 40 lbs...so I was down about 10 from where I started, LOL. Over the course of the summer, I lost the rest of the weight and I've kept it off the last 6 years.
ReplyI actually became thinner and more muscular during my first year and a half at college. Then, I started to really focus on my studies. Between skipping meals, not exercising, and sometimes pulling 3 all-nighters in a week, I finally managed to gain a significant amount of weight. I promised myself that I would improve my habits after I graduated though, and I kept that promise. The bad weight is dropping off and the good weight is coming back.
ReplyBesides, kids are SUPPOSED to clean their plates. They are growing, learning, and changing rapidly, and they need calories to do that. (And personally, I want my children to be polite guests who will eat whatever is served!) Parents need to evaluate their children's food intake and activity level, and adjust menus accordingly. If Junior is a tubby couch potato, he doesn't need a double serving of mac 'n' cheese with extra butter -- Mom or Dad shouldn't be serving that!
The discipline to stop eating when you are full comes with age and experience.
ReplyPeople in the old days probably ate a lot more than even we do as a society now. The thing was, more than 100 years ago, everything was done by hand and people more or less had to walk everywhere they went. People might have eaten 3000-5000 calories a day, but when you're on feet day to night working in the fields, moving heavy stuff from one part of your house to the other, or just being active all day 5 or 6 days a week, this does wonders to prevent weight gain. That's the difference between the society of old and modern culture. Everything we have is pure convenience and designed so we have to put in the least amount of effort to get the greatest reward.
In essence, people ate more a long time ago most likely but daily physical activity was a part of survival, not something seen as an unnecessary convenience which is the attitude that many contemporary people have adopted.
ReplyI understand why you think as you do, but ancient societies may actually have consumed much fewer calories than now, and not worked nearly as hard as we think they did.
ReplyI'm with Dr. J here.
It is nearly impossible to get 3,000-5,000 calories worth of food when meat is not the basis of a diet, and oils and sugar are very expensive.
Being from a developing country, I've had a chance to go to places where people still stick to the traditional diet that their great-grandparents ate, 100+ years ago. Places where a grocery store, even a tiny one we'd call a bodega in a city, are miles and miles away. People eat chicken and pork they raise, eggs, save the lard to cook, eat the vegetables they grow (especially kale, since it grows fast and never dies), and eat beans, corn, cassava (and make tapioca out of it) and rice that they either grow or trade with their neighbors who grow it. The "grocery store" sells soap, personal hygiene things, oil, molasses, sugar, wheat flour, and these are all precious items. Bread is corn bread. If they have a guest, they bring out the cheapest soy oil we use in cities for deep-frying in a little jar, as if it were truffle oil, and they don't put it on their salad, cause it is a precious thing, "for company" only. Dessert like rice pudding, or corn pudding (that are barely sweet - certainly less sweet than my oatmeal every morning) is made for birthdays or religious holidays, it is too expensive to have regularly.
So a bit of stewed chicken, vegetables, rice, beans for lunch and supper, and a bit of corn bread and milk for breakfast hardly adds up to 5,000 calories. The servings I've seen these people eat, even men who work the fields manually all day, are not that much bigger than those I eat to sit all day long. The women eat about as much as I do, the men a bit more, and definitely a lot less than men with desk jobs eat, and a ton less than men who do physical labor in cities eat.
So there you have it: people stay thin by pretty much following the food pyramid, being active, and not overeating. What a shocker.
ReplyI would love to see a comparison of a parallel group (i.e. matched for age/socioeconomic status etc.) that did not attend college and see if they gained similar amounts of weight in a similar time frame. The friends of mine who went directly to the workforce also put on weight after high school, because they were sitting around at desk jobs most of the day, and did not have any gym classes to force them to exercise. Plus, they could afford to buy cars since they were working, so they didn't walk anywhere anymore.
Personally, I lost weight (about 12 lbs) in my first year of university, likely because the main meals in the cafeteria were so greasy and disgusting, I mostly ate soup and salad all year. Plus, the limited hours of the cafeteria forced me to not eat late at night...Then I "found" the weight I lost and more in my second year, because I was cheap and didn't know how to cook, so I ate mostly refined carbs all year. Enter years of graduate school, where I gained about 60 pounds all together (above what I weighed in high school), and I was obese. Then a year and a half ago (while still in grad school), I lost about 80 lbs by exercising and eating properly, making me smaller than I have ever been as an adult. I guess my point is that we blame a lot of weight gain on college (and various other factors) but it really comes down to healthy behaviours in the end.
Replyhi
ReplyI went to Mass Bay Community Collage and all they served at night was fried foods, pizza, and other junk food. So, I just ordered out at Fireflies, got fish and vegtables, and at them instead.
Can't anyone serve healthier foods? At my office, they have nothing healthy except that I can go up to a deli stand, and order a big hunk of veggies (Eggplant, lettuce, tomatoes, red pepers, mushrooms, pickles), put it on a whole grain bun, add a side (soup; egg salad--eggs, lettuce, celery, crunchy vegtables, mushroom; or steamed vegtables), some fruit (Yogurt profly or frozen yogurt on fried), water, and a small piece of dark chocolate. They do have some scrumptous healthy menues some times, like the portabello wrap with chicken, some cheese, olive oily green vegtables, peppers and mushroom; salmon and legumes with vegtables, and some more. For dinner, I have unfried, unbredded fish half (like Salmon, Mahi-mahi, etc), the nights a week with veggies and rice.
But all they serve at the collage is junk food, pizza, fried foods, and stuff like that. Blaah. No wander why people are so overweight these days.
ReplyThis year is my Freshman year. I gained five pounds, and then I lost 10!!
The food got really boring fast and I'm a lot busier now and always on the go. The freshman fifteen definetely doesn't apply to me. :(
I'm actually trying to gain weight right now.
ReplyWell as a senior now in college, I know why I gained the weight. It's those meal plans... I started the year with the recommeded meal plan which required me to waste most of it on ice cream, muffins, and cookies. I figured that I needed to use them up on something so I got the best tasting thing. After my first quarter I reduced my meal plan which helped a bit but the food that was served was still greasy. 4 years of college have led me to gain 10 pounds from when I graduated high school which isn't bad but I plan to lose it all once I've graduated.
ReplyPeople are getting busier in the so called rat race of life and to cook a healthy meal when they get home is a very rare occurence indeed. My bet is down to the continued consumption of microwaveable products. Damn you convenience!!
ReplyMy freshman year I didn't gain any weight. I was the same size I had been since my freshman year in high school. I worked out religiously my freshman year because I was afraid I was going to start gaining weight. Once I made it home for the summer the same weight, I figured I was in the home stretch. My running shoes didn't make it out of the closet once the entire summer. I went back to school only 5 pounds heavier but completely out of shape. Because I was so out of shape I didn't feel much like getting back in shape, so those 5 pounds started to multiply pretty quick when I was back on the all you can eat meal plan and the late night study binges. By the end of the first semester I had piled on 17 pounds and I had bumped up a size. Unfortunately it didn't stop there, and by the following summer i had gained a total of 32 pounds. I got cocky because I didn't gain any weight my freshman year and then I blew up my sophomore year. Freshman are not the only ones susceptible to packing on the pounds. For the first time since I was 14 I'm wearing a size in the double digits (10). I'm topping out right now at 154 pounds at 5'3. I have a big ass, gut, and a double chin. Everyone needs to be aware that getting fat doesn't happen just freshman year.
ReplyI am an adult who is back in school to further my degree, between the stress of school, work and eating at odd hours I have gained 68 lbs since November. I was 120 lbs starting in Sept and now I am 188.
ReplyCollege was my undoing. I was a fit person until I went full time to the university, then I gained 15lbs.
ReplyI'm back in college for a year at the ripe old age of 33 (a girl asked me when I went to enroll if I was there to enroll my child... eek!). I'm taking a semester now that is traditional classes in the evening, and next semester I'm going to be just writing my dissertation, so no regular class schedule.
I've lost 10lb since classes started already, cause I can't have dinner. I hope my weight stabilizes now, as I am sure that most of it is muscle loss (what was formerly gym time is now class time - something's gotta give, and as I didn't win it lottery, it couldn't be work).
ReplyWelcome back, Jan! It's only a few day's late, so Happy Birthday "Mr. Jan"
Reply(I remember because of Linus)
:-)
Thanks Dr. J! He had a good one too.
I had a bad second half of last year healthwise, which is why I was away - my thyroid wasn't good (I only have myself to blame, from switching my usual prescription to generic after years of hearing my cousin say they are all absolutely the same thing, and that I was a sucker for paying more.. only to learn that the effects weren't the same), so all my free time was being spent napping, hehe.
ReplyHaven't gained as much weight, maybe a few pounds. I am definitely not toned anymore though. CURSE YOU FULL TIME UNIVERSITY!
Reply