A NEWSWEEK ARTICLE ABOUT HIGH SCHOOL SWEETHEARTS GOING away to college casually throws off the line that “breakups are as inevitable as the freshman 15.” Though some might prefer to ponder the death of young love, let’s consider an equally vexing question: Is significant first-year weight gain really unavoidable?

That’s certainly the age-old conventional wisdom on and off campus. As Ilana Lustbader ’09 notes, “most of us go in aware of the potential freshman 15, whether or not it is a myth.”

But studies have turned up a range of findings. In 2000-01, Mark Jenike, a former Pomona anthropology professor, conducted a study at Pomona that found the average weight gain to be about four pounds during the first year. However, a 2004 study from Cornell University presents a less appetizing picture—a gain of 4.2 pounds in the first three months alone. And in October 2006, Brown University Medical School researchers found that freshmen at one unidentified college packed on an average of nearly eight additional pounds.

At Pomona, some students, such as Lustbader, actually lose weight their first year. “I found food to be one of the last things on my mind during stressful periods,” she says. But for many others the sudden availability of unlimited food—in the form of all-you-can-eat dining halls, clubs that lure people to meetings with Krispy Kremes and the late-night Snack in Frary Dining Hall is overwhelming.

“Along with fruit, peanut butter, milk and coffee, which should be there, (Snack) has pizza, onion rings, corn dogs, ice cream sundaes, cornbread, cake and chocolate chip cookies,” says Tom Dunlap ’08. “And by that time of night, most of your willpower has been used up, so it’s hard to resist.” Despite campus rules, alcohol also typically makes the list of culprits contributing to weight gain.

 Another complication is the intertwining of socializing and snacking. Jenny Lee ’07 remembers that as a first-year, “you don’t want to miss anything—and that includes late-night runs to 7-Eleven or In-N-Out.” Lee, who gained 12 pounds. her first year but is back down to her high-school weight, says gaining weight made her feel like a cliché. “I always thought that it wouldn’t affect me—I’m active, I eat well. But then everything changes … you lose control of your schedule, and it runs away from you.”

 When you add unhealthy snacks to unhealthy meals, the problems—and the pounds—pile on. When Alisher Sayadalikhodjayev ’08 came to Pomona from Uzbekistan, he put on 25 pounds., even though he played soccer and went to the gym regularly. “That just shows I ate so much,” he says. “I ate pizza every day.” When Sayadalikhodjayev went home over the summer, he lost much of the weight, then put it back on sophomore year. The yo-yo pattern continued when he again lost weight the summer after sophomore year and then gained five pounds. in the first week of his junior year. “I think there is something about the air here,” he jokes.

Scott Berkley ’09, who gained 16-18 pounds his first year, says “friends (at other colleges) with pay-per-item dining halls didn’t gain weight, or maybe even lost some, because they’re cheap.”

Pomona’s dining halls do offer plenty of healthy choices, from grilled vegetables to chicken breasts to extensive salad bars. Carla Jackson, who works for The Claremont Colleges’ Health Education Outreach and counsels about 90 students each year about nutritional concerns, says that given the access to healthy food, “one would think that (college students) would have better diets. “Students aren’t taking advantage of the options.”

But sometimes eggplant just cannot compete with buffalo chicken pizza. “People know what’s bad,” says Berkley. “It’s a matter of personal willpower.”

Luckily, weight gain is not always negative for still-growing teens.

“Coming from an all girls’ school in Manhattan where everyone was weight conscious, I arrived at college a sort of scrawny little thing,” says Jen Huang ’07. “I don’t think I necessarily gained the freshman 15 but I do think I gained more self-confidence and instead of fearing the extra weight … I celebrated the fact that gaining weight would be healthy.”