{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.paul.senate.gov/news-dr-rand-paul-uncovers-380k-nih-study-freshman-15-latest-waste-report/", "Dr. Rand Paul Uncovers $380K NIH Study on \u2018Freshman 15\u2019 in Latest \u2018The Waste Report\u2019", "2015-10-19", "2015", "2015-10", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Rand Paul", "P000603", "www.paul.senate.gov", "paul", "https://www.paul.senate.gov/news/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senator Rand Paul today released the latest edition to \u2018The Waste Report,\u2019 an ongoing project cataloguing egregious examples of waste within the U.S. government. The latest edition highlights the National Institutes for Health (NIH) conducting a $380,000 study seeking to identify how social relationships freshman year of college contribute to weight-related problems \u2013 commonly referred to as the \u201cfreshman 15.\u201d\n\nThe latest edition of \u2018The Waste Report\u2019 can be found HERE or below.\n\nThe \u201cfreshman 15\u201d is an old legend around college campuses; the idea that new college students, away from home and confronted with a campus food service smorgasbord tend to put on a few extra pounds.\n\nWell the National Institutes for Health aims to get to the bottom of this with a $380,000 grant to study how social relationships in college contribute to weight-related problems.[1] Because it\u2019s not the food you eat, it\u2019s the friends you make.\n\nThe study being done at Arizona State University (ASU) seeks to identify how the friendships freshman make in college contribute to weight-gain and poor eating habits. In addition to collecting data on the types of friends college freshmen make, the study will, \u201csurvey friends of participating students across an academic year to explore friends\u2019 potential impact on freshmen\u2019s weight-related outcomes.\u201d[2]\n\nNothing like asking your new friends about your eating habits. \u201cSo, how many chili dogs did Tom really eat?\u201d \u201cSo, how many of your sorority sisters skipped breakfast?\u201d\n\nBut there may be a wrinkle in this plan that makes it even more wasteful of tax dollars. College weight gain might not even be a problem. Numerous independent studies spanning decades have agreed that freshman only gain around 2.7 to 3.5lbs over their entire freshman year. It turns out it was Seventeen magazine that arbitrarily put the number at 15 back in 1989.[3]\n\nBut even the 2 to 3lbs might not even be a problem. An Ohio State University (OSU) study comparing college freshman to their non-college peers and found only a discrepancy of about half a pound, attributing most of the weight gain at the tail end of growing to adult size. The OSU study concludes, \u201canti-obesity efforts directed specifically at college freshmen will likely have little impact on obesity prevalence among young adults.\u201d[4] Even ones aimed at your social weight gain?\n\nTo put it in perspective, with an in-state cost of attendance at about $27,000 and out-of-state at $42,000, these funds could have paid for 9 to 14 freshman\u2019s first year at ASU, if not more critical research or reduce the federal deficit.[5]\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-08T20:28:00Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.paul.senate.gov/news-dr-rand-paul-uncovers-380k-nih-study-freshman-15-latest-waste-report/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.5430559180676937, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}