Freshman 15 Essay

Freshman 15: How much will you gain?

It is not typically easy for a person to maintain their weight to exactly what

they want all the time. Being happy with your weight comes from hard work,

determination, and maintaining a healthy diet. Teenager’s bodies especially, are always

changing due to their daily activity levels and diet. The beginning of college is a new and

exciting time in a teenager’s life where so many things are changing and transforming. In

the beginning of college, people are adjusting to their new lives and homes, away from

their parents and friends. Many people are accustoming to the difference in work load

which causes a lot of stress and anxiety among many students. Depression often comes

from breaking away

Even though these students strive to maintain their diets, daily stress and

depression have seemed to cause the so-called Freshman 15 weight gain through the new

found freedom of alcohol.

Alcohol is said through many sources to be one of the leading causes to the

weight gain of freshman college students. The term that is mainly used to describe this

freshman weight gain is called the “Freshman 15”. This is described as the weight that is

gained during a students first year of college. Whether or not it be 15 pounds gained, new

life changes lead to this development. There are many reasons for the possible weight

gain of college students starting with the fact that “college students usually face much

stress and drastic environmental changes” (Yoon). College is a huge change teenager’s

must adjust to, both academically and socially. It is a step into a world of new and

exciting opportunities and is an entry point into the real world of being responsible and

taking care of one’s self. Negative behaviors such as drinking and smoking start to

emerge greatly once the college party life begins. People start to try new things and

constantly get influenced by others. College is a chance to start over in a whole