We’ve all heard it. The whispers. The rumours. The taboo name no first-year dares to utter. I am, of course, talking about the Freshman Fifteen.
It’s that mystical, supposedly inevitable, weight gain that sneaks up on students when they least expect it. Think ‘I’m not going to gain weight, I’m walking 15,000 steps a day’, and that’s when it will catch you; well… that’s when it caught me. One minute I’m eating instant noodles and frozen chips in the name of ‘budgeting’ and the next I’m holding my jeans, convincing myself that they totally shrank in the wash.
But here’s the thing: almost everyone’s weight will change in uni, whichever way the scale goes. And that’s ok.
‘You’re going to gain fifteen pounds’ – no study ever
Because, yes, while I might have gained a little bit of weight in Semester one, the Freshman Fifteen is statistically a myth. In fact, one large-scale study in the Journal of American College Health found that most students gain only three to five pounds in their first year, a fraction of that infamous fifteen.
So why does it still haunt us?
Freedom, Food and 2am Toasties
First year is like the ultimate buffet (and I don’t just mean this literally). For the first time, no one is reminding you to eat your vegetables or to only have one sweet treat after dinner. And somehow, in between laughing with your friends at 1 am and reaching for another chocolate, the guilt settles in. It curls around your spine and whispers in your ear: Maybe you shouldn’t eat that. You’ve had enough. You need to double your steps tomorrow to work all that off.
And the worst part, you can’t tell if it’s your voice anymore. Is it your mum’s, or your dad’s, or that one sports coach you had as a kid that always picked on you? Most likely, it’s no one’s voice at all; diet culture has always thrived on creating chaos and panic, and it works.
Fittok, filters and fears
It doesn’t help that scrolling through your FYP, you’ll find a ‘What I Eat in a Day at Uni’ video that looks suspiciously different from what you eat: avocado toast, green juice, and protein supplements that your student budget could never afford. The message that we internalise? That there’s a ‘right’ way to eat as a university student, and that way involves eating chia pudding out of a thrifted mason jar.
Social media makes it all too easy to feel like we’re losing control of our lives. But spoiler alert: adjusting to uni is always going to be messy, no matter where you are or what year you’re in. Whether that’s socially, emotionally, or even nutritionally, you’re going to experience change. But that’s not a moral failing, it’s human.
If there’s one thing I’ve learnt in my short time at uni, it’s that sometimes I need to close the app and put the phone down. I remind myself that the people on the screen aren’t trying to make it to class in the pouring rain when the bus doesn’t come, or have an assignment due in three hours, worth 50% of their grade. They’re not me, and they’re not you. And that’s precisely the point.
The Real Freshman Fifteen?
But the Freshman Fifteen isn’t just going to disappear with this article, or even in a year. Maybe it never will. So, if we can’t get rid of it, I propose that we rebrand it. Instead of gaining fifteen pounds, we should think about gaining fifteen life lessons instead.
Fifteen new things you learn about yourself.
Fifteen times you mess up and try again.
Fifteen times you stay up too late, making questionable life choices and realising that you’ve grown into someone honest.
You might gain weight. You might lose it. You might stay the same. It doesn’t matter; as cringey as it sounds, the real change is invisible. It’s the way we learn who we are.
So eat those chips. Share that frozen pizza from Tesco. Laugh about how bad it all tastes. Because the only thing heavier than the Freshman Fifteen is the weight of caring about what your body looks like in the mirror and how everyone around you perceives it.
