SRC helps fight ‘Freshman 15’

For years, college freshman have tried to avoid the "Freshman 15" – extra weight resulting from students’ first experiences with college food.

This year, West Virginia University’s Student Recreational Center will be helping students keep that weight off.

For the fourth year, the SRC is hosting the annual ‘Freshman 15’ fit program, in which students can compete over the course of 10 weeks for prizes.

By acting as a contest and making students earn points over the next several weeks, they have the opportunity to win prizes, including a $100 gift card from The Book Exchange and an overnight stay at Hotel Morgan.

When the program first started, freshmen were the only students able to participate. Now the program is open to any WVU student looking to maintain their weight. Nancy Oliverio, manager of fitness and wellness at the Student Rec Center, said the program also targets student nutrition.

"We try to educate students on how to work out on their own, how to use the equipment and give them suggestions on how to eat healthy in a dorm and make healthy food choices during the year," she said.

Some of the required activities involve group exercise classes and intramurals so students can take advantage of everything the Rec has to offer.

"In recent years, we have had a great turnout," Nancy said. "And most of the time the variety of students range from freshmen who don’t want to gain weight to those grad students who would like to lose a few pounds."

Oliverio said to stay healthy one should drink a lot of water and do physical activity 6 days a week,whether that’s coming into the Rec Center, taking a walk around the downtown campus, going for a jog or even doing a doing a dorm room workout.

Oliverio also said avoiding fried and carb-loaded foods, such as pizza, calzones and French fries.

The SRC will continue the exercise program into the spring as well.

"The spring program always tends to be more of a body transformation contest that lasts for 7 weeks," Oliverio said. "It’s amazing what people can do in that amount of time."

Even though 10 weeks isn’t long enough to see a huge change in body fat or physique, Olivero promises students will feel healthier.

"The minimum time span you should spend on this type of program is 12 weeks, but given our resources and our time constraint, we have to go with what we feel best and what’s going to keep the attention up among our students," Oliverio said.

The SRC offers a variety of classes to choose from throughout the entire year.

Besides an indoor basketball court, track and rock climbing, the Rec currently has Zumba, yoga, core fusion, spinning, and will be adding a Body Pump class in September, which is a trademark class not offered at any gym other than one in Martinsburg, W.Va, Oliverio said.

"Students don’t realize that they’re quality instructors and quality classes for free, which is a really great thing we do to get students emerged in fitness," she said.

On average, there are approximately 3,500 to 4,000 students entering the SRC each day.

To check out more information about getting involved with the ‘Freshman 15’ fit program or other offered classes at the SRC Center, visit www.studentreccenter.wvu.edu.