If college students gain weight during their first year in school, it may have much to do with how close they live to their campus dining halls and exercise facilities, a new study reports.

 

Researchers wondered whether college freshman assigned to dormitories with on-site dining halls gained more weight than their peers who must walk a little farther for meals.

 

Although the average weight gain in freshmen has been widely called "the freshman 15", lead author Kandice Kapinos, PhD, an assistant research scientist at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, says they anticipated less gain. She states, "We know that there are other factors that influence weight gain, such as genetics and social environment, so we were not even expecting the physical environment effects to be close to 5 pounds."

 

The study, which appears online in the Journal of Adolescent Health included 388 freshmen who were randomly assigned to seven different dormitories, four of which had on-site dining halls that served three meals per day. All students had access to two campus gymnasiums with state-of-the-art exercise equipment.

 

Students reported how many meals they ate each day and how many times per week they exercised. Females in dorms with on-site dining halls weighed almost 2 lbs more and exercised 1.43 fewer times per week than females in dorms without dining halls. Male students in dorms with on-site dining halls ate about 1.5 more meals and almost three more snacks per week than their peers in other dorms.

 

Living closer to a gym increased the frequency of exercise for females, but the authors did not find proof that distance from the gym affected weight gain.

 

Jeanie Alter, PhD, of the School of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation at Indiana University says, "This study confirms what we as public health practitioners have believed for a while." She also adds, "Location is not only important in real estate; it's also important when it comes to health behaviors, and proximity of food and exercise facilities influences our behavior." "Though this study found small weight differences between groups, those pounds add up over time without a change in behavior," says Alter.

 

Article source: Health Behavior News Service

Article from: Today's Dietitian, September 2010

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