3 Personal Stories

1 RETHINKING FRESHMAN 15 //

Recently, in my applied psychotherapy course, my professor gave us a piece of advice: Treat yourself the way you want to treat others because, quite often, we are not as kind to ourselves as we should be. This is true in many aspects, especially when talking about body image.

My freshman year of college, I was excited to have a fresh start, yet I felt overwhelmed. In the first couple of weeks, there was so much talk about the looming “Freshman 15,” which refers to the amount of weight one will gain their freshman year of college. The stigma surrounding it is so detrimental to our mental and physical health, because even juniors and seniors in high school are beginning to dread it. When we place a label on the possibility of weight gain, we