The fact the Freshman 15 is different for guys and girls is bullshit

“Oh my God, look at how much weight Jeanine’s gained since she’s gotten to college, like you can even see it in her face,” says Katie as she scrolls through her Instagram feed.

“Oh I know, it’s so embarrassing” says Haley, quickly looking up Jeanine’s profile. “Wow, she’s really let herself go.”

Every single girl has had a similar conversation similar at least once in their lives (it’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s just what people do). We’re feeling a little bad about ourselves – maybe we didn’t exercise that day, or perhaps a boy we we’re into snubbed us in favor of their own personal “Becky with the good hair” – and we try to make ourselves feel better by stalking people we don’t like and secretly enjoying when they’ve gained weight in college.

When we’re leaving for college, girls are constantly warned about gaining weight. Many of us spend excessive amounts of time at the gym in an effort to burn off last night’s tequila and pizza, we become borderline obsessive about counting calories, and frequently weigh ourselves to see how much of an effect the terrible dining hall food is having on us.

But guys? It seems as though they spend all of their time drinking beer with their “frat bros” and only go to the gym for like 10 minutes while they spend the rest of their time there spotting other people or yelling about “how amped they are.” Then they brag about how much weight they’ve gained as long as the weight seems like it’s coming from muscle and not fat.

Think about it: college boys walk around with their shirts off all the time, displaying their body for all to see, and no one gives a shit whether they have washboard abs or not, but when a girl who isn’t super fit does the same? She’s completely ridiculed and made to feel ashamed for displaying her body. We accept male weight gain so much we’ve even made a category for boys who’ve ‘let themselves go’: the “dad bod.”

According to the internet (thank you urban dictionary), the dad bod is defined as “a guy who has guns that can crush beer cans but also a belly that says I drank those beers and I can eat six slices of pizza in one sitting.” Many girls have then come forward about why they love the “dad bod.” Apparently it makes them less intimidated, cuddling is more fun, the girl knows they’re the better looking one in the relationship, etc.

But you know what’s been left out of the conversation? Stories about boys liking something I’ve affectionately dubbed the “mom bod.” Boys respecting the decision some girls focus more on their studies, or on socializing, than going to the gym and staying in as good of shape as they were in high school, rather than talking about how they’d “never bang that one fat chick.”

I have absolutely no problem with the dad bod – I think it’s ridiculous to expect all boys to look like exceptionally fit movie or sports stars, and I think gaining weight in college is something to be expected. My problem is the fact that we have accepted boys gaining weight and still refuse to accept when the same thing happens to girls. It needs to be OK for girls to gain a little weight when they get to college. 18-year-olds should not think they need to look like models in magazines in order to have boys interested in them (and if that’s what a guy actually thinks then you shouldn’t want to date him anyway).

Plus we all know most girls can easily put away six slices of pizza in one sitting and crush beer cans if we really had to, so we may as well just start now and tell society to go fuck itself.