Besides accumulating knowledge, students just starting college also often add pounds, sometimes called the “freshman 15.” But is this only a first-year worry?
A new study, which appeared in a September issue of "Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism," involved 131 people who, at the start of the study, were college freshmen ages 17 to 19, all of them single, without children and with no eating disorders. About two-thirds were female. They were weighed and measured in their first month at college and again four years later, at the end of the spring semester of their senior year. Over that time, 70% of the students gained weight; the average gain was 12 pounds.