According to the National Eating Disorders Association, the eating disorder risk among college students has substantially increased by thirteen percent from 2013 to 2021.
The "freshman fifteen" is the belief that college students gain fifteen pounds during their freshman year.
Dorothy Selph attended Arizona State University and was bombarded with the fear of the freshman fifteen when she left for her freshman year.
“It freaked me out, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m gonna get really big, this is scary,'” Selph said.
The Child Mind Institute found that during college years, young women are the most at risk for developing eating disorders.
Although the concept of the freshman fifteen has long haunted college students, a study by Dr. Nicole Mihalopoulos found that college freshmen only gain 2.5 to 3.5 pounds, not fifteen.
Lesli Allen is a BYU CAPS therapist with a PhD in Clinical Sociology and a specialized interest in body image and eating disorders.
She confirms that the freshman fifteen is a myth and wants people, especially college students, to understand that our bodies are constantly changing from the moment we are born to the day we die.
“This is when people are at the emerging adult stage, which is 18-24. Our bodies naturally change,” Allen said.
Allen also teaches an intuitive eating class at BYU. The class covers the book "More than a Body," a ten-step plan to help people listen to their bodies and understand their fullness and hunger satiety cues in order to lose the diet mentality.
One of the book's main points is that “our bodies are instruments and not ornaments.”
“We have bodies that allow us to exist on this planet,” Allen said. “They may be differently abled and different looking, but we are capable of learning and growing and moving and dancing and creating art and all of these things.”
Allen said that diet and exercise only contribute 30% of body weight. Environment, access to health care and nutritious foods play a bigger role.
For college students, these factors can be difficult to control.
Selph said that the environmental change in college caused weight gain as she began to lean on food for comfort.
“You find something to lean on because you’re in such a hard state and you don’t know what to do,” Selph said.
Food can be comforting and a reminder of home, especially when moving away, and as Allen put it, “adulting” for the first time. All of this newness and the changes can cause negative feelings, ones that people want to avoid.
“We tend not to want to feel the ones that feel really uncomfortable, the loneliness, isolation and feeling scared. Food can numb it, and starvation can numb us as well,” Allen said.
Emma Jensen, a BYU student, has found food to be a significant social aspect of college.
“There’s a lot of socialization around food, so if you don’t eat, you’re the weird kid,” Jensen said.
Jensen served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Arizona, Tucson mission. During that time, she developed some indicators of anorexia and bulimia.
“I struggled adjusting to the abrupt change,” Jensen said.
During her mission, it wasn’t the fear of what she looked like that began to dampen her relationship with food, but the stress in her life at the time.
“I would feel nauseous because it was easier for my brain to process the stress as physical illness rather than a mental one,” Jensen said.
Like college students, it can be difficult for missionaries to control what they eat and how long they exercise.
“You don’t have a lot of control over what you are eating, and some members don’t really give you control over how much you’re eating either,” Jensen explained.
Jensen said that she saw this lack of control affect her companions. If they didn’t run in the morning or exercise sufficiently, it impacted their mental well-being for the rest of their day.
According to ScienceDirect.com, perfectionism is recognized as a transdiagnostic factor in eating disorders. Allen commented that many BYU students are perfectionists, something that can translate into their eating patterns.
“There’s so much perfectionism that’s rampant and we apply that perfectionism to our eating,” Allen said.
Ashlee Hunt, a therapist at Maple Canyon Therapy, posted a blog entry regarding LDS missionaries and eating disorders. In the blog post, she acknowledged how missionaries, especially sisters, exhibit perfectionism and high achievement traits.
She also acknowledges how the rigid structure of the mission can trigger the perfectionist parts of people.
“They can become perfectionistic about what they eat and their weight, or they may feel a lack of control with all the other areas of their life and turn to restriction, binging, purging and overexercising to control what they can't control,” Dr. Hunt explained.
There are many Facebook groups for missionaries, especially sister missionaries, regarding how to stay fit on a mission. “The Swole Sisters Support Group” and “Many are called…But Few are Sisters” are some examples of these support groups.
These groups provide tips and personal anecdotes about their experiences with weight and body image while on the mission.
Many of the conversations in these groups involve asking for help on losing weight and some disclose that their biggest fear of serving a mission is gaining weight.
“You simply don’t have enough time as you used to work out or focus on fitness,” Jensen said.
Jensen said that she didn’t care about the weight gain while actively on the mission, but began to develop anxiety around it when preparing to go home.
Selph said that her weight gain during her freshman year at ASU caused anxiety around not only how she felt about her body, but also how others — especially romantic interests —felt about the weight gain.
“I didn’t want anyone to touch me, I didn’t want a guy to touch my hand or like put his hand on my arm,” Selph said. “I was just so self-conscious cause I was a little bit thicker than I normally felt.”
Selph said that many of her friends felt the same way, with some blaming their lack of a dating life on their weight gain, which caused some to develop depression or turn to diet pills and develop eating disorders.
“I think it’s super important that people understand that their worth is not in what their body looks like,” Allen said.
Both Allen and Selph expressed a desire for people to stop constantly talking about how their bodies look.
“Why can’t we talk about other things besides our bodies?” Allen asked.