This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at U Ottawa chapter.

Freshman 15: the act of gaining an amazing amount of weight in university/college. The myth is that it only happens to freshmen, but truth be told it can occur at any time during your university/college career.

Freshmen 15 is when you go from this:

To this:

Or this:

There are many reasons why this has become a social phenomenon. The causes are simple and we have all indulged in them:

1) Meal plans options are far from good and are quite fatty. They tell you it’s like this:

But in reality it’s the way overpriced version of this:

2) Those late night and/or drunk and stumbling snacks you had at 3 am last night? Somewhere down the line they are going to be regretted…

…Way down the line. (Naturally the human body gains more weight when you eat late. Our bodies don’t metabolise as fast when you are asleep).

3) When we no longer live at home with our parents, we feel like we eat whatever we want, (which we can) but usually it’s far from a healthy meal.

4) We don’t all live like this:

Healthy meals seem too expensive to survive off of when we have such sad student budgets.

So naturally how do we prevent ourselves from gaining the extra unnecessary pounds? Well for starters we can try to eat healthier. The problem is most of us don’t know where to begin.

5) There are lots of cheap alternatives to finding good healthy ingredients that you can cook yourself. Find out what they are in your area.

6) Buy your groceries on Student Discount days. Hello savings!!

7) Stop spending so much money on take out, delivery and eating out. Cook! Even if you’ve never learned how to, there’s more than enough cooking shows or books out there and we all have access to YouTube.

What about our student budgets?

8) Learn to budget better. The amounts of money students spend on going out, alcohol and countless other frivolity is crazy. Don’t stop having fun but just plan it out better. In the end having good health is so much more important than fun moments you might not even remember.

In the long run, don’t stress too much about it. Enjoy the pounds while you can.

9) There are lots of ways of getting rid of the extra weight, like joining a gym or a club that keeps you fit. Dance it all off!

And to be honest you’ll probably lose it all either from the stress of exam season and assignment deadlines.

Or the good old fashion disappearing trick our student budgets like to pull on us!

In the end we are what we eat.

References:

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http://giphy.com/gifs/fat-kznal07FJDUsw

http://giphy.com/gifs/cat-fat-TKUottzLkuxAk

http://giphy.com/gifs/food-tasty-beef-b3ltBtJfiF9O8

http://giphy.com/gifs/pizza-food-cheeseburger-Sg4aa67xpB5AI

http://giphy.com/gifs/drunk-fast-food-rob-ford-5xtDarKVDrwJQ9gSC2Y