The Fake 15

Equating the first-year experience to 15 pounds is a gross simplification of college life.

The start of college is somewhat akin to taking the Red Line for the first time alone during rush hour to get to your 8 a.m. class at the Water Tower Campus — everything is in constant motion and there’s no compass to help you to navigate the chaos leaving home creates.

Adding on the expectation of weight-gain to vulnerable young adults is a recipe for disaster — or more specifically disorder.

The Freshman 15 is a fabrication fresh high school graduates are told over and over again. They’re made to believe they must overcome this obstacle to avoid being included in the statistics of college students who have gained a couple pounds. 

While weight gain is a possibility due to the magnitude of change, the average first-year student gains only 2.7 pounds, according to the National Library of Medicine — making the Freshman 15 a myth. 

When there’s a fear of weight gain, self-restrictive behavior can become the immediate reaction. Weight fluctuation isn’t just based on food consumption, but also sleep, alcohol consumption and stress, all of which college students must learn to balance for the first time. The true obstacle is the ability to form healthy and stable habits.

Although the dogmatic Freshman 15 is a proven falsehood, its pervasiveness across college campuses has dangerous consequences.

Typically, eating disorders develop between age 18 to 21, according to the National Eating Disorder Association.

The idea of eating disorders being a response to the desire to be thin is a widely accepted misconception. While thin-centric beauty standards do play a role in disordered eating, its primary catalyst is often a craving for control. 

When nothing is certain our brain searches for a constant. One of the most tangible means of control for many college students who are thousands of miles from home is how often they visit a dining hall. 

The desire for control is especially dangerous when mixed with the endless online discourse surrounding the Freshman 15. Articles across the internet put up the illusion they’re providing relief to students by highlighting supposedly helpful tips to avoid weight gain. In actuality, they’re feeding into a false narrative created to scare young adults and their evolving bodies. 

The immediate search results for the Freshman 15 are reddit threads and health publications such as Healthline and Mayo Clinic. The images, which are primarily of women, depict before and after photos, scales and pants that won’t fit. 

On every walk, every social media post and every meal swipe, college students are plagued with the frightful number 15.

Multitudes of TikToks and YouTube videos giving tips for navigating life as an undergraduate bring up the Freshman 15 as another casual concept, as if it’s dorm decor or study habits. It has become a dangerously normalized part of the higher education experience. 

College students are young adults with ever-changing bodies. For those leaving home, there’s pressure to come back for winter break and look like you stayed the same. The equation of weight gain to failure is embedded in college culture because of the Freshman 15.

There are thousands of topics college students could be worrying about. Basic requirements for living – like eating enough –  shouldn’t be one of them. At the end of the four years, you get the degree no matter how much you’ve physically changed. It’s important to be healthy enough to walk across the stage.

We’ve created a culture that has an odd obsession with the number on the scale. 15 doesn’t have to be scary. 

The Freshman 15 needs a new definition. Rather than being about 15 pounds, it should be about the 15 biggest changes a new student faces, the 15 fun facts they need to prepare for first day icebreakers or the 15 new names they have to learn. 

These are the 15’s that matter. The fake 15 has been harming students for long enough, and it’s time to restrict its power, not ourselves.