Rite of passage or just part of growing up? This is the time of year when young adults start making daily decisions for themselves.
Some of these decisions will affect their waistlines. The 鈥淔reshman 15鈥� typically appear during a young person鈥檚 first year away from home, whether at college or university or elsewhere.
Let鈥檚 be clear. The Freshman 15 is exaggerated. Numerous studies show that students in their first year of university gain, on average, just 1.2 to 1.8 kilograms (three to four pounds), with some gaining more, some less, and some none at all.
However, despite average weight changes being smaller than popular belief would have them be, they still represent a weight gain in this age group that is five times greater than in the general population over a year. Immoderate consumption of calorie-dense foods, poor meal patterns, increased dieting and disordered eating have all been identified as contributing to the weight gain.
In a study published this year, Brock University researchers tried to tease apart what led to the first-year increases and how it was expressed. They collected the height, weight, waist and hip circumference and body-composition information of about 300 first-year university students at the start and end of the school year. By April, most students had gained weight and increased their weight-to-height ratio (BMI), but male participants had outgained the gals. On average, male students put on almost eight pounds, increased their BMI by about one-quarter pound per square foot, and gained one inch around the waist. Female students gained, on average, almost 4.5 pounds, one-eighth pound per square foot BMI, and about half an inch in the waistline.
The researchers also queried the students about their eating habits. In general, the students reported a decrease in quality of foods eaten over the year and an increase in the amount of alcohol consumed. The guys, in particular, ate significantly more doughnuts and fried chicken, and drank more beer and liquor, at the expense of healthy foods such as yogurt, oatmeal, vegetables, green salad and fruit.
Now, 300 self-selected participants constitute neither a large nor a random sample, and only 72 of the participants were male. Another limitation to the study was the questionnaires required the students to report their own food choices and eating patterns, which means they might not be accurate.
However, unlike most other related studies, this one included both female and male students and actually measured the students鈥� body stats at the study鈥檚 start and end, instead of relying on participants to report those numbers, too. This suggests opportunities to target students with education about diet and lifestyle.
In the first year away from home, young people are settling into new routines and adopting lifestyle habits they will hold for years. When faced with so much newness, unaccustomed unsupervised freedom and fresh responsibility for daily choices big and small, it鈥檚 easy to choose ready-made, tasty, high-fat, high-carb, high-salt comfort foods that activate the brain鈥檚 reward responses over, well, kale salad, steamed broccoli and rutabaga.
In addition, for the first time in their lives, young people can drink legally. Experimentation and excess can result when the only rules and controls are self-imposed.
The first months of independence are a time of testing boundaries, trying new things, building new friendships and growing into adulthood in mental and emotional age, not just in calendar years. So much of a university student鈥檚 education takes place outside of the lab, lecture hall and classroom.
And it doesn鈥檛 happen overnight. A person doesn鈥檛 leave home as a teenager and instantly transform into a mature, responsible, stable adult who files taxes on time and pays off the credit-card balance on the due date. Brain scientists have determined that the human brain typically matures fully only during its owner鈥檚 20s 鈥� and a bit later in men than in women. The prefrontal cortex, which houses the machinery for complex reasoning, judgment and self-regulation, is the last part of the brain to come completely online.
And making those functions fully operational requires a process of trial, error, reflection, correction and growth 鈥� all of which takes time.
The only truly surprising thing about the Brock study was the preferred foods specified by the participants. Doughnuts, pizza and fried chicken had supplanted burgers and fries as the most popular foods by year end.
