Freshmen Fifteen Research Paper

The “freshmen fifteen” is a term used for the fifteen pounds students gain on average during their first year of college. As first year students they, tend to get extremely stressed out with work load and exams. The finances of a student are limited as majority of them live off loans and cannot afford groceries. Meanwhile the students that can afford groceries do not know how to cook leaving them to eat out at restaurants or sign up with the college for meal plans. With an excessive work load and little spare time the students schedule become irregular and the most nutritional meals are missed.
The first year is always the most stressful as students are not quite sure what to expect with the amount of work load, midterms and exams. Being stressed out impacts an individual to gain weight drastically as well as; stress can raise blood sugar levels, reduce the ability to burn fat, and create hunger for fatty foods. It is challenging for our bodies to handle chronic stress as we were not developed to fight it. This type of stress provokes

It is unfortunate that students are provided with less funds than what are needed to live a healthy lifestyle. Nutritional food is always more expensive at grocery stores and students base what they purchase on price. An unhealthy diet is an easy way to put on weight. For example, a box of Kraft dinner for $1.50 or vegetables for a salad close to $5.00, students would be more inclined with the cheaper alternative putting their health concern aside. Post-secondary institutions also offer students to buy meal plans which give them a discount on certain fast food restaurants and cafeterias. Students are more likely to buy the meal plan discount as it is potentially cheaper than buying groceries. Fast food restaurants and cafeterias do not have the healthiest options, in result to that the students are putting higher calorie food items into their