Tag Archives: freshman 15

college health, mental health, student health

Tackling the Freshman 15 With a New Approach to Fitness

freshman 15

Your new college student probably returned home for the holidays with some unexpected baggage: the freshman 15. It’s a common fact that many freshmen can gain weight due to various factors—poor diet, sedentary lifestyle and stress eating.

However, as your student begins the new semester at college in 2023, it’s time to take a step back and rethink a new approach to fitness. They may or may not be concerned about their health but it’s a good idea to encourage them to pursue a healthy lifestyle.

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college visits, orientation, work study

Dorm tips for new college freshmen

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Female College StudentMoving into the dorm as a college student is exciting— so exciting that germs and bacteria are the last worry on a freshman’s mind. The come-and-go sense of independence, co-ed hallways, late-night weekend hangouts— by sharing such close communal spaces though from the dorm room to the bathroom, immunity from germs and sickness is impossible.

Teach your kid these dorm tips to keep your future college student happy and healthy.

Communicate About Cleanliness

Mix laziness, zero communication, assumptions and passive aggressiveness and you have an ongoing unclean room shared between two people. Encourage your kid to be upfront and communicate with the new roommate by discussing who cleans what and when. Open the doors for discussion and explain that holding in irritations will only worsen the living situation and energy exchanged. Also, your own college student may be the dirty culprit himself. Remind him that a those nasty food plates will bring in bugs and a dirty room will make him sick. Gross!

Stock Up on Sanitizing Wipes

Regularly wiping down the doorknob, microwave oven, computer keyboard and mouse, and other areas that are highly touched eliminates germs and bacteria from growing. Shop for sanitizing wipes in bulk and your college student can just easily take an antibacterial wipe to anything for a quick clean. Whether you prefer Clorox or Lysol, these wipes are an easy cleaning solution for a college student who struggles with maintaining a spotless space.

Use Hand Sanitizer

Public surfaces like the dormitory bathroom door handles and classroom stairway railings are hotspots for germs. Sanitizing these surfaces before using them is a faux pas, okay — and who has time for that anyway? Do the next best thing. Tell your kid to keep a small bottle of liquid hand sanitizer with her. She can discreetly spritz hands after touching something in a public area, especially during cold and flu season.

Keep Multiple Sets of Sheets

Buy several sets of sheets so it’s always easy to put fresh and clean ones on dorm bedroom mattresses. The desire to be clean is likely to be trumped by the desire to not do laundry, or at least frequently. By having plenty of spare sheets, trips to the laundromat are kept to a minimum and the bed stays clean for healthy nights of sleep.

Take Vitamins

College kids live on pizza and chips? Unfortunately, dining hall food choices, dorm room snacks and alcohol aren’t the most nutritious. Make sure your college student keeps his immune system strong by taking a multivitamin daily. Although vitamins can generally be expensive, there are less costly options. Try Vitacost’s Synergy Once Daily Multi-Vitamin for a supplement that is high-quality, reasonably priced and easy to take between classes.

Work It Out

The value of exercise isn’t groundbreaking news, yet emphasize to your kid how staying active improves the immune system. Walking for 30 minutes a day can prevent colds, for instance. Nobody wants to wake up with a sore throat and sit in the germ-infested waiting room at the on-campus clinic. Between cramming for exams and hanging out with friends, the gym can be a place of neglect. During that weekly phone call with your son or daughter, remind them that an active body is a healthy body!

Let’s face it though–rarely do students listen to us or take the time to follow these healthy habits. I know my kids didn’t, in spite of my constant insistence. The best we can hope for is that they grasp onto just a few of these tips. And it’s our right to “remind” them every chance we get!

college guidance, parenting

Eating disorders as students enter college

 

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When your kids leave home to head off to the ivory tower of learning, you probably have many fears about what may befall them now that you’re not around on a daily basis to keep them safe and ensure that they’re taking care of themselves. You might worry that they’ll party too much with their new friends at the expense of attending classes and doing their homework. And for that matter, they could fall in with the wrong element on the friend front. Then there are all of the stresses that will be heaped upon them with the responsibility of managing their own schedule and the anxieties that come with a new living situation and new social groups.

Of course, you’ll probably also wonder if they’re eating right. But amongst all these fears, you may never even consider the potential for your kids to develop an eating disorder. And yet, it’s not entirely uncommon for new college students to fall into bad habits where their diets are concerned, and this can easily lead to eating disorders.

It is estimated that many students suffer from disordered eating–they fail to eat on a regular schedule or that they do not consume a balanced diet, or often, both. But eating disorders are a much more severe permutation of this basic concept. Even still, approximately 10-20% of female college students are thought to suffer from clinical eating disorders while somewhere in the neighborhood of 4-10% of males go down the same path. This is a rather alarming statistic when you consider that the percentages of people with eating disorders amongst the general public are much lower (according to statistics from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication). So what makes entering college a trigger for eating disorders for such a large number of students?

What you need to understand about serious eating disorders is that they are rarely linked to some kind of digestive issue. Rather they are psychological in nature. What motivates people to binge, purge, or starve themselves is often a psychological stressor (or several). When people feel that their lives are out of control and that there is little they can do to relieve their stress, they may turn to the one thing they can control, their diet, as a way to regain some measure of authority in their own lives. Even if that means they are skipping meals or vomiting up nearly everything they consume. In rare cases, body dysmorphia of some kind may be at the root of the problem. But since college represents a hugely stressful time in the lives of most young people, chances are good that the environment and the situation play a major role in the onset of eating disorders.

As a parent, you may have bigger fears concerning your student than whether or not you should send them off with a years’ supply of granola bars, vitamin supplements, and proteinex. But don’t overlook the signs and symptoms of an eating disorders (significant weight loss or gain, obsession with food, exercise, isolation, unwillingness to eat in front of others, and so on). This type of condition can be even more harmful than the partying you’re probably worried about – it can even be deadly.

Since you never stop parenting, pay close attention to any of these signs and prevent your student from going down a path that will ultimately affect their health.

college guidance, college planning, parenting, Uncategorized

The infamous "Freshman 15"

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When my daughter was in college, she, her roommates, and friends feared and dreaded the “freshman 15”. There’s a rumor out there (and it’s more than a rumor) that freshmen in college gain 15 pounds the first year.  Corey Bobco for The Real College Guide gives your college-bound freshman some tips on how to avoid those 15 extra pounds. Pass these tips along to the class of 2014…or 15…or 16.

Note: I would venture a guess (and I’m probably right) that much of the 15 pounds is attributed to high calorie alcohol consumption.

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It doesn’t take a college degree to know that eating junk plus exercising less equals the end of your smokin’ bod. But sometimes, on-campus crunch-time habits like scrimping on exercise and binging on convenient, crappy food can stick — especially if they begin while you’re lazin’ out at home on break.

Factor in a colossal workload (aka hours of inactivity while your butt is nailed to your desk chair), and you’re looking down the very-real barrel of your freshman 15. Want to avoid ‘em? Try practicing healthful habits on the home front so you’ll be ahead of the game once stress strikes when you’re back at school. Here are some tips:

Fork in Five a Day

Here: The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends eating five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables each day to reduce your risk of disease and give you a good dose of dietary fiber — which pushes digestion along, quite literally. Scarfing down adequate servings doesn’t mean throwing back a whole bunch of bananas in one sitting or repurposing your funnel for competitive juice chugging (especially because it only takes half a cup — that’s 4 ounces — of fruit juice or vegetable juice to yield one serving). While you have access to your parent’s grocery funds and home cooking (if you’re lucky!), make it your daily goal to increase your fruit and veggie intake.

There: Hit up the dining-hall salad bar and enlighten your tray with some greenery. To avoid in-class grumbles, snack throughout the day — and make your snack of choice fruit. Apples, bananas and oranges can usually withstand the wrath of your books when thrown in your bag for a between-class snack. Plus, it’s easy to grab a piece or two on your way out from breakfast in the dining hall.

Plan Accordingly

Here: At home, you might not have control over what kind of tempting food finds its way into your pantry. But make sure there are healthful snacks in there too to help you avoid stuffing your face with the worst of the worst when hunger strikes.

There: When stocking your dorm room with snacks, don’t feel the need to get everything your parents keep in the house (because it’s familiar) or everything they don’t keep (just because you can). Rather, stick with the following mantra: “If I don’t buy it, I can’t eat it.” So what should you buy? Try portion-controlled trail mix, dried fruit or 100-calorie bags of popcorn — and get it at a supermarket or health food store in bulk quantities. Individual servings save you from yourself (aka overeating), and buying in bulk saves you cash. Stocking up instead of buying individual items at a vending machine or quick store will save you serious cash — especially when you’re munching on these snacks instead of ordering deep-dish pizza late-night.

Get Physical

Here: With nothing but time on your hands over summer (or any) break, you have no excuse not to be active. Luckily, this doesn’t have to be painful. Take a swim for an awesome way to get exercise while working on your tan. Dust off your old bike and take it for a joy ride around the block. Or try walking — you may be surprised how far your legs can take you around your hometown.

There: Take the time to research what facilities your school offers. Most campuses offer free gym membership, indoor pool access, free or low-cost exercise classes and bike racks –which, by the way, you should totally use, since two wheels are cheaper than four and faster than walking to class. Since you’ll probably know when you’ll be in class before you get to campus, it should be easy to figure out how to fit exercise classes or gym sessions into your day. Once you set aside the time, keep it interesting by inviting friends to join you or trying something new, like yoga, Pilates, tai chi, step aerobics, kickboxing or capoeira.

Sleep in

Here: In the long run, sleep deprivation encourages weight gain. Use your spare hours to determine — within reason — how much sleep you actually need to feel well rested. Then, make sure you get it. (Hint: If you think you need more than 12 hours, you’re wrong. More likely, you need between six and eight.)

There: Depriving yourself of sleep typically raises stress levels while impairing mental and physical performance, so you really need to get your z’s. Early class? Set a bedtime and stick to it. If you feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day to do your work and get sufficient rest, reassess the way you spend your time. It’s possible that interruptions like your roommate’s incessant BBMing or distractions like Facebook browsing are robbing you of precious hours. Reclaim ‘em and rest up!