I’m about to go into my sophomore year of college, and in the past year, I’ve heard and said the words “freshman 15” hundreds of times.

I’ve seen healthy, fit friends grab their stomachs after a big meal and cry, “I’m getting the freshman 15!”

I’ve watched otherwise happy girls frozen in the middle of the dining hall, torn between the salad bar and the American bar, punishing themselves for wanting fries.

I’ve seen the confidence of male friends shrink at the slightest change in their waistline.

I see all these things because freshmen are trained to be ashamed of even the slightest weight gain, and it’s destroying our confidence.

I myself have had a long and hard battle with body image. I first remember thinking I was fat in fifth grade when I obsessively tied T-shirts back with hair bands and stared hatefully at my round child’s tummy in the mirror. The struggle continued throughout middle school and high school as I punished myself for not having the body I thought I was supposed to have.

By the time I was a senior, the two F's were being brought up in every college-related conversation I had. My friends and I joked about gaining weight and laughed off our feelings of dread at becoming the worst thing we could in college — fat.

I won’t tell you the freshman 15 isn’t real, because it is. Does it happen to everyone? No. I knew many girls who maintained or even lost healthy weight. But it does happen. I have an anxiety disorder and entered college suffering from major depression and suicidal thoughts. I began a ritual of overeating, which, combined with the anti-depressants I began taking and my lack of consistent exercise led to me gaining more than 30 pounds by the time I left school in June. I call it my freshman 30! Other people gain different amounts of weight for different reasons, many just due to an inexplicable connection between entering college and gaining a little chub. My experience was one of the most complicated situations.

By working on not overeating and experiencing vast improvements in my mental health, I have naturally lost 10 pounds in the past few months. Having experienced the whole dreaded gaining process, I’m writing to tell you there’s nothing to be afraid of. I’m not interested in losing any more weight, because I love my new, curvier body — and because it has taught me a lot about myself.

Through gaining a little weight, I learned what it truly means to be “healthy.” Instead of going crazy at the gym, I researched healthy living and integrated walking, balanced meals and good sleep patterns into my life. Most importantly, I focused on my mental health, recognizing it as the major factor in my weight gain. I went to workshops and saw a counselor to work on decreasing my stress, finding healthier relationships and building strong self-esteem. All of these, I found, were much more important facets of my health than a number on a scale. By avoiding feelings of guilt about my weight gain, I discovered what really mattered about my health. Afterward, I naturally reverted to a healthy weight — not my original weight, but one my doctor approved of. That’s all that matters.

I also learned just how bad my self-esteem had been as a teenager. Through my weight gain, I learned I had lived for 19 years with a distorted body image. This means that I saw myself and body very differently than it actually was. A natural roll on my stomach seemed like a colossal, disgusting bulge; tiny freckles on my arms seemed like huge, ugly scars; cute pink stretch marks seemed like shameful brands, proving my fatness. How much I actually weighed is irrelevant, because thousands of young women with natural bodies feel this way every day. Adolescence was a rocky road, every new curve plummeting my confidence. The freshman 15 pulled me out of that vicious cycle of self-loathing. I gained the perspective to realize I was beautiful all along, and I should love my body for growing with my spirit and teaching me to love myself.

I have also learned how to be a role model for other young women struggling with bad body image and fear of the 15. A few months ago, I was at an interview for a scholarship program (I was a college freshman at the time, 20 pounds into my confidence gain). I was sitting next to a high school senior, and we were talking about her upcoming transition to college life. I jokingly mentioned the freshman 15, lovingly patting the little tummy underneath my dress. I’ll never forget the look that came over her face when she heard me say that.

Her face folded in worried lines as she said with a tone of dread, “Oh, my gosh. Is the freshman 15 real? Please tell me it’s not.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond. I stared at her — a young, beautiful girl with the world ahead of her — and I felt angry. I felt angry that of all the things she could be concerned about in college — high depression rates, challenging classes, living on her own, staying away from drugs — she was most worried about getting “fat.”

Luckily, I had a year of wisdom under my belt. I had a year of trying to love a changing body I loathed, a year of teaching myself to see the imperfections of my folded, creased, squishy body as beautiful streaks on a dynamic canvas. And so I could tell her, with confidence, “Yes, it happens, but it’s not nearly as big of a deal as people say it is. In fact, it can even be a good thing.”

I can say now with confidence I love my freshman 15. It is neither good nor bad, my enemy nor my friend; it’s just another change in life. It even turned into an opportunity for me to improve my health and confidence.

People talk about the freshman 15 like it’s the worst thing that could happen to people their first year of college, but it’s not. The worst thing that could happen to a freshman in college is to be convinced by others that their body is not worth loving. So, to all the little high school seniors tottering out into the big world this fall, listen to me when I say the 15 is no big thing. Not at all. In fact, it can even be pretty great.