Why do college students eat so much?

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It seems common to gain weight in college, but why does this happen and how to fight it?

I am in grad school and am trying to keep a certain BMI, but it's a struggle. I eat way more when in school versus when working (even stressful jobs!). When I say "no" to my cravings, I have lots of difficulty and start yawning/spacing out unless I turn to caffeine for a boost. When I eat, my focus improves, but I begin to gain weight.

Each time I mention how "tired" I am in college, people are saying I should see a doctor. But I have no health issues? Besides, I eat super healthy, buy everything fresh, have a personal chef (I never eat out and bring homemade food everywhere), and get all nutrients in my diet in the right proportions. I am just trying to reduce calories to what I normally have no trouble sticking to when not in school.

Working out is a great way. I do a ton of walking to help keep a healthy weight. I also cut out soda for the most part.




If you have a Fitbit join the WrongPlanet group.

https://www.fitbit.com/group/233W34

College is very stressful. You meet a ton of new people. New surroundings. And, most likely, a very competitive environment in which there are people way smarter than you, often for the first time. Finally, there is lots of good food around campus.

Try chewing sugar free gum instead. Mint is an appetite supressant and makes you feel more alert.

No doubt you have had your thyroid checked and if you are like me, it was probably close to the low end of the acceptable range which means that doctors won't prescribe anything. I got fed up with having no energy and did some research to find that sea kelp could help. So I got some from Puritans Pride (puritan.com) and it helped me tremendously. I could make it thru a day at work and still be able to do stuff around the house in the evenings. Look into it when you get the chance.

Why College Students Gain Weight:


Stress.
Mom and dad aren't there telling you what to eat, doing the grocery shopping, and cooking all of your meals for you.
All the cool parties have empty calorie foods.
A lot of empty calorie foods work out to be cheaper and more available to college students.
Not all college students have access to a fully functional kitchen or a full size fridge/freezer of their own, which means convenience foods.
Class hours and cafeteria hours don't always match up neatly.
Local eateries run specials with college students in mind and those specials consist of empty calorie foods.
Not everybody made the sports team for whatever sport they played in high school.
College grades are how your employers will judge your skills/potential, and some college students realize this and focus on studying and leave no time in their lives for anything else except (most likely cheap) ready-made meals and post-Finals parties.
Add all that together and you get the freshman 15. Or more.

Because they are stressed to do well in school; stressed to become an adult; stressed to take on the new responsibilities; and stressed to fit in in a class with at least 1000 other kids unlike a normal high school class of at most several hundreds.

Just remembered I wanted to comment on this.

I remember reading about a study a few years ago, which, as far as I can remember, was done at the University of Stavanger. Researchers found studied the exercising habits of lots of different people, and found that people who had high levels of stress hormones did not lose weight from exercising. I remembered it partly because this fit with what I was experiencing at the time, but I think the research was buried because it's pretty much as close to blasphemy as you can come in the Nordic countries.

So basically what they said was that any exercise will increase stress hormones, but if your baseline stress hormone levels are pretty low, you won't reach the threshhold levels where your body tries desperately to cling to any fat it's got, and in that case you'll lose weight. It was a nice explanation for what I'd noticed at the time, which was that exercising mainly made me fat. This of course also had something to do with the fact that exhausting myself seemed to destroy any inhibitions around food, and I'd stuff myself in a way I normally wouldn't do.

On a very unscientific note, I've never seen an overweight long time yoga practitioner, and I've noticed that yoga makes me feel good without turning me into a wolf. Why not try yoga for exercise? The nice thing is that it can be done anywhere and doesn't require a lot of equipment.

As for the skinny aspies, I think they are skinny because the eat very little, not so much because they exercise a lot. I'm happy to be corrected about that, though.

Using your brain is an enormous power-hog; you need an exessive amount of sugars to keep thinking straight, especially when preparing for exams.
Unfortunately, many foods also have ingredients that your brain cant use, so they get stored, and food cravings often result in you grabbing the first thing you can get, which is not always what you use.

The best way to combat this, aside from exercise, is to eat different things: i had a lot of chewing gum for when i felt hungry: the act of chewing made me think i ate, even though there was nothing in gum that makes me gain weight,

I was overweight before starting college, but it has gotten worse over the past year. For me, it's the temptation of the food in the cafeteria, the snacks at the school events, and the vending machines. I think it can be due to stress too, as school is very stressful. I was always a bit chubby, but I gained a significant amount of weight in junior high, when schoolwork got harder and social struggles began to affect me more than they did in elementary school.