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The Effects of College on Weight: Examining the “Freshman 15” Myth and Other Effects of College Over the Life Cycle

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Demography

An Addendum to this article was published on 03 August 2017

Abstract

This study examines the effects of college on weight over much of the life cycle. I compare weights for college students with their weights before and after college and with the weights of noncollege peers using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). I also examine the longer-term effects of college measured almost three decades later. I find that college freshmen gain substantially less than the 15 pounds rumored to be typical for freshmen. Using difference models, individual-specific fixed-effects models, and instrumental variables models to control for various sources of potential bias, I find that freshman year college attendance is estimated to cause only about a one-pound increase. Supplemental results show that those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds gain more weight during the freshman college year. Longer term, having a college education consistently decreases weight. These negative effects have faded over the last 20 years, and they diminish as respondents approach middle age. These trends are more prevalent for whites and Hispanics than for blacks.

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Notes

  1. I do not use National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data (NHANES) or Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) data because these are not panel data sets and are therefore unable to identify year-to-year weight changes. Further, BRFSS data do not include youths, instead examining adults at least 20 years of age.

  2. The NLSY97 measures of weight (and height) are self-reported and are potentially measured with error. Following Cawley’s (2000) procedure, I use self-reported and measured weights and heights in NHANES data to adjust my measures of weight and height.

  3. I do not include respondents who reported their survey weight during summer months because I do not want to confound the effects of college with the effects of summer and summer’s various activities on weight. Sensitivity analyses show that including respondents who reported their weight in June does not appreciably change the reported results and conclusions.

  4. Because the NLSY97 began surveying 12- to 17-year-olds in 1997, some of the respondents were in high school before the survey began and cannot provide body weight information for those years. I use an unbalanced panel in my analysis, where a “balanced” panel is defined as a consistent sample of respondents who provide a weight observation for every year (or age) included in the analysis. Otherwise, respondents who do not provide valid weight (and height) information in the six requisite post–high school graduation years (e.g., the pre-freshman, freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, and post-senior years) would be eliminated from the analysis. With an unbalanced panel, changes in sample average weight over time might reflect attrition such that, for example, low-income individuals who weigh more might be more likely to drop out, downwardly biasing the sample average weight in later survey years. On the other hand, a balanced panel discards potentially useful information. Regardless, I conduct sensitivity analyses to explore whether instead using a balanced panel would substantively change the results. Results from key models are largely unchanged, so I do not present results using the balanced panel in the tables.

  5. The NLSY79 collected information about weight in 1981, 1982, 1985, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1992, 1993, 1994, and every two years thereafter. I do not use NLSY79 data to examine weight in college because weight was reported sporadically during the early 1980s, when most NLSY79 respondents were in college. Furthermore, not all NLSY79 respondents provided the information needed to identify weight during college because some began college before the NLSY79 began surveying; this would be true, for example, for a NLSY79 respondent aged 21 in 1979.

  6. Similarly, Card (1995), Kling (2001), and Currie and Moretti (2003) used the presence of all two- and/or four-year colleges and universities.

  7. For somewhat different results, see Mehta and Chang (2009).

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the Faculty Research and Creative Activity Committee (FRCAC) and Michael D. Allen at Middle Tennessee State University for financial support.

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  1. Economics and Finance Department, Middle Tennessee State University, P.O. Box 27, Murfreesboro, TN, 37132, USA

    Charles L. Baum II

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Baum, C.L. The Effects of College on Weight: Examining the “Freshman 15” Myth and Other Effects of College Over the Life Cycle. Demography 54, 311–336 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-016-0530-6

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