Your first year of college is full of challenges: financial challenges, relationship challenges, and academic challenges. To cope with these challenges, and being away from home, many students often turn to food for comfort. Most colleges require their Freshman to have a platinum or unlimited meal plan. Freshmen have access to as much food as they can eat; this food is not always healthy. Cheeseburgers, fries, cookies, pizza, and ice cream are in no shortage on most college campuses. These calories result in students gaining the “freshman fifteen," a fifteen-pound weight gain that occurs in a student’s freshman year of college. Getting adjusted to college life can be a bit overwhelming for most, unfortunately causing students to over eat.

So, what’s the first step to gain the freshman 15? Stress. Stress is almost impossible not to avoid in college. The constant tests, quizzes, projects, and chapters students must read makes it easy for stress to creep up and make its attack. When stress does make its attack on its victim, it can cause what is known as stress eating. Stress eating is consuming food in response to feelings or emotions, also known as emotional eating. This means that your stress levels and emotions trigger you to eat, instead of your hunger.

Step two to gaining the freshman fifteen is night eating (eating at night.) Studies have shown that eating late at night from after dinner, to beyond a person’s bedtime, can cause the body to store calories as fat and retain weight instead of burning it as energy. According to 'Grubhub' students are 87% more likely to order food late at night, than the average diner. With fast food delivery services, such as 'Grubhub,' 'Ubereats,' and 'DoorDash,' late night eating has become extremely easy for college students.

With steps one and two you are off to a great start in gaining your freshman fifteen! All of the stress that comes with college, along with the freedom and the wide range of unhealthy unlimited food in the café will definitely set you on your way to the body of an overwhelmed, now slightly overweight, college student!