0 _0 26 U. THE NATIONAL COLLEGE NEWSPAPER Student Body OCTOBER 1988 OCTOBER 1988 News Features U. THE NATIONAL COLLEGE NEWSPAPER O~ Uf) Z- uO QU w. W W F CA. P - Freshman 15: Weight comes fast By Julie Evers The Daily Mississippian U. of Mississippi For many freshmen, going away to college means more than new friends and hard work. It -means . gaining weight - the Freshman 15, as it's known. It all starts in the cafeteria. Most first-year students aren't used to having such huge quantities of food (including endless desserts) avail- able at every meal. Most of them haven't had to decide - meal after meal - what should go on their plate and what shouldn't. Despite the temptations of the cafeteria, the problem wouldn't be half as bad if students ate in the cafeteria at set meal times. But col- lege life means that you eat just about everywhere around the clock. So the food is there, and the in- clination to eat may well be, too. But, with a little forethought, you can eat a healthy, balanced meal and not gain weight. "Watching what you eat is a ma- jor factor because you are making all the decisions, and foods that are high in sugar and fat aren't good nutrition choices," said Charlotte Oakley, a U. of Mississippi reg- istered dietitian. But above all, don't worry. The good news for those who do gain weight is that the Freshman 15 really is a freshman phenomenon that doesn't have to be permanent. Getting all the facts about fat gives a bad college diet a lift By Sihl Chung Ka Leo O Hawaii U. of Hawaii Did you know that the fats in our bodies, which we try so hard to get rid of through exercising and surgery, have a function? That the fat cells fight and never die? That exercising is better than dieting? That 70 percent of your calories are burned while you rest? These questions and more are answered by Dr. John A. McCurdy Jr. in his book, titled, Sculpturing Your Body: Diet, Exercise and Liposuction. . Before doing anything to your body, like exercising, dieting, vibrating your fat or having an operation, McCurdy advises that you first "understand the medical and biological facts of fat." Fat serves as a storehouse during famine and pestilence, writes McCurdy, a Honolulu cosmetic surgeon. "Once produced, fat cells merely shrink and anxiously await a return to a state of caloric surplus so they can manufacture excess calories as fat." McCurdy said that a caloric restric- tion cues the body to "fight for its fat." In fact, 90 percent of adults who lose their weight by dieting gain it back within two years. According to McCurdy, several stu- dies showed that people who exercised regularly lost weight even if they ate as usual. He also said that exercise tends to have a calming effect which controls appetite, and that some experts recom- mend daily exercises before the main meal of the day. After dieting, most of the weight re- tained is fat and not muscle, McCurdy said. Three studies showed that fat is not lost in specifically exercised areas, but equally throughout the body. In contrast to getting rid of fat through dieting, there is an operation called liposuction surgery. Liposuction is the removal of fat cells from specific areas of the body. After surgery, new fat cells don't re- place the extracted cells, if the person, keeps a stable weight, McCurdy said. McCurdy urges everyone who is thinking about having the surgery to know their bodies first before doing any- thing "drastic" to it. McCurdy added that a person's fat is distributed differently depending on body type as well. He said that a person's build can be classified into three basic types, deter- mined by a combination of variations in skeletal frame and muscular develop- ment. endomorphs are people with wide trunks and short arms and legs which make them look fat. Ectomorphic people seem to be trim and thin. They have long, thin arms and legs and a narrow trunk. Those with an athletic physique char- acterized by "broad shoulders with well- proportioned muscular extremities" are called mesomorphs. No matter what you do about fat in your body, nothing can be done about how our body shape is determined be- cause the "distribution of fat that deter- mines our body shape is under strong genetic influence, and exercising cer- tain areas appears to have little or no influence on the thickness of fat in that particular area," McCurdy said. That quick snack leaves no choice By Miriam Smith The State News Michigan State U. Sharon Hoerr, a Michigan State U. science and health professor, conducted a two-year study on the types of snacks offered in unre- frigeratedi campus vending machines and came up with some not-so-surprising results. Hoerr determined that out of 133 candy and chip items featured in these machines, only six supplied adequate nutrition. I think people should have a choice when they go to a vending machine," Hoerr said. "Our conclu- sion is that we need to develop more nutrient-dense popular snacks so that people do have a choice." Pretzels, crackers, peanut butter items and plain chocolate bars are your best nutritional bet. Choco- late-nut candy bars, candy-covered peanuts, granola bars and choco- late sandwich cookies are the worst, Hoerr said. Although nutrition is important, vending machine companies will not implement any drastic changes, said Wayne Yontz, a divi- sion manager for ARA vending ser- vices. "My personal thought is that stu- dents are going to buy what they like," he said. "We're putting in the best quality items for the most popular choices. "Everyone cares about nutrition, but we have to also go by what sells." Don't lose control over stress I ea vcriinui 4~7<_^^"^ ' By Lisa Cowan Daily Evergreen Washington State U. Stress is a big problem associated with college, but students can beat it if they take control of that new college atmosphere. "Everything is new and different when going away to school," said Bar- bara Hammond of Washington State ).'s counseling services. The people, the climate and even the food are all diffe- rent from home. "You've moved from an environment that is predictable, and therefore con- trollable, to one that is unpredictable and, at first, seems completely uncon- trollable," she said. "Time will help, but the more you can be active ... the more familiar it becomes." All university students experience stress, not just new students. This is caused by high performance demands, Hammond said. "There are so many ways you're ex- pected to achieve - in each class, in your department, for your B.S. or B.A. degree and eventually for a job or acceptance into graduate school," she said. "Each one requires hard work. "A lot of people think of college as being insulated from the 'real world.' That's nonsense, this is the real world." To help relieve stress, it is important for students to be realistic about their capabilities, Hammond said. "Don't fall behind," she said. "Some of the most stressed people come in (to counseling services) at the end of the semester and say, 'I'm so far behind, what do I do?' "Falling behind puts you out of con- trol." Talk about manual labor. The only thing more complicated than most word processors is their bulky instruction manuals. You can try wading through hundreds of pages of "user interfaces" and "output fonts" or you can try something far simpler: the new Smith Corona PWP 40 Personal Word Processor. Using PWP 40 is truly an exercise in simplicity. Our easy-to-follow Tutorial DataDisk teaches you that moving blocks of text is a snap, deleting words is a cinch and inserting words is effortless. PWP 40 can even go wherever you go. It weighs under 17 pounds. 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