College Students Gain Weight

You go off to college for development of your mind and growing your social life and all of a suddenly you observe that your body is growing along with everything else. It is very easy to make out how it happens. You are actually going to the college for almost certainly the first time and you are completely free to eat whatever and wherever you want.  The problem with all that newly-found food freedom is that it can rapidly accumulate new-found fat in the body.

Gaining weight during the first few years of college has become very common. And in fact it is so common that it has now almost become a recognized tradition. Cornell University carried out a recent study and found that on an average, college freshman gains around 0.5 pounds a week.

This is about 11 times above the average weight gain amongst 17-18 year olds and about 20 times above the average weight gain amongst American adults. Due to this overwhelming statistics two obvious questions arise in mind:

• Why college students are gaining weight at such a startling rate? And
• How can this college weight gain be avoided?

Why college students are gaining weight at such a startling rate?

There are many different factors responsible that lead the student to gain weight in college. Few of them can be summed as follows:

Increase in calories:

College life persuades an increase in the caloric intake amongst students. College life is filled up with social events and these events are usually identical to food. Most of the college canteens serve their food in buffet style and when given right to unlimited amounts of food majority of the people automatically overeat. All this leads to increase in calories in college students during their college.

Decrease in activity:

When students come into the college majority of them leave organized sports events behind them. These students who were used to practice more than five times a week for long-hours are now left with no responsibility to remain active. Due to decrease in their daily activity they usually start gaining weight with fat getting accumulated in their body.

Metabolism killers:

College students are well-known for crashing their metabolism by managing their diets poorly. This happens when a student is eating very few meals and ends up eating extra large meals once or twice a day in place of eating balanced meals all over the day.

A most common metabolism destroyer of college students is missing out breakfast which is considered to be the most important meal of the day as it is responsible for starting one’s metabolism with the start of the day. Another classic metabolism destroyer of college students is eating late at night.

Thus, there are many factors responsible for gaining weight amongst college students during their college life. However, if they eat a healthy diet and carry on regular exercise they can avoid this weight gain during their college.