THE FIRST YEAR BODY

NATALIE VALLES (first year rep, content creator)

A diverse school comes with diverse bodies. But, when you can’t seem to find one out of the 15,000+, you can’t help but wonder why. You see the morning runners, hoards of people with the same body type, and you just wonder why you can’t quite place yourself into that group. Everyone’s body is different, but why does mine feel like such an outlier? I know I’m not alone in this. Social media and diet culture prove so. But, it’s still so damn isolating.

Ethnicity plays a large role in this, too. My ancestors were strong and built for hunting and survival. Others were built from starvation. My DNA tells me to add extra weight here, slow my metabolism, but I wasn’t taught this. I simply compared myself to the thinner girls that always compared themselves to me.

It’s even crazier to think that we’re all thinking the same thing, but too afraid to say it. I’ve very recently realized we all feel the same way. We all have VASTLY different body types, different diets, work out in different ways, and are from difficult cultures, yet we can all agree that our level of insecurity with our bodies has skyrocketed. Why? We all feel the same, we all know we should be confident. We all see different body types. Why has the transition into college and its relationship to our bodies been so difficult?

Don’t even get me started on “The Freshman Fifteen”. The unexpected 10 pounds I have gained within 10 weeks is baffling. I don’t understand how that even managed to happen, and every other freshman that has gained 10 pounds is equally as confused. It may be the snacking, or the sitting all day with online classes, or just stress slowing our metabolism. But, still, the weight seems to come out of nowhere.