For tonight’s post I thought I would talk about the infamous freshman fifteen. First things first, I would like to begin with the new knowledge I’ve recently learned about and that is that the idea of the “Freshman Fifteen” is simply a myth. There is no study that actually proves that new college students gain 15 pounds their freshman year. It is actually shown that students gain a natural 2.5 to 6 pounds over a gradual period of time. However, although there might not be an excessive weight gain, there is indeed an excessive amount of unhealthy food options that do make bad eating habits easy to form. So, although this freshman fifteen may be false I have noticed a change in since I first started college.

Growing up I was never big into eating out or eating fast food. Whenever my mother would have a busy week at work and didn’t have time to make a home cooked meal, I would genuinely get upset by that. I would ask, “When are we going to eat home food again, I don’t want to eat at McDonald’s!” I don’t know what 8 year old did not want McDonald’s all the time but apparently, I was that kid. Thus, my eating habits, by choice, were never that bad. Long story short, I never indulged into bad food much when I was younger. Now a month into my freshman year at college I find myself constantly eating burgers, chicken tenders, fries, pizza and everything else that is just absolutely not okay! The worst part of it all is we do have the option of fruit, vegetables(although they don’t taste fresh at all), and chicken(that is chicken that is not deliciously fried into chicken tenders.) Before reading the article that I linked above, I believed that the freshman fifteen was bound to happen to me since all I have been eating is junk. Thus, recently I have made the promise to myself that I would attempt to eat the healthier options provided to me. One day at lunch I was looking at all my choices and on my plate that so far consisted of pizza, a slice of turkey and some potatoes. Then my friend grabs a piece of broccoli and I remembered the promise I told myself to keep.

In our psychology class we learned that more often than not the reason why people eat is not because they are actually hungry.There are many factors that influence why people eat when they do. One of these factors includes social influences. This is the idea that how much someone eats and what someone chooses to eat is altered depending on who they are with. Hence, if I was eating alone for lunch that day I probably would have stayed with my pizza on my plate and nothing more. However, watching my friend grab a healthier food option made me want to do the same. So although everyday that walk past the pepperoni pie is extremely difficult, I am highly successful in grabbing a more nutritious plate for dinner…most of the time. 🙂