There is a point to this column, I swear.

Magazines, movies and all the other crap-filled media in the world tell us to "watch out" for the freshman 15 when we come to college - like we're supposed to constantly walk around with an anti-doughnut or anti-beer necklace.

They tell us it's normal to gain weight, and we can work out during the day to get it off. They tell us a whole effin' lot, but what they don't tell us is that while we're all watching each other get fat, we don't notice it in ourselves.

That is, until the pants we were wearing at the beginning of the year are now so stretched out that when we wash them, they magically shrink to the size they normally were.

GASP!

That calls for the classic, dance-to-make-your-pants-fit routine. We slide those babies on, sucking in all our excess fat molecules, and quickly do up the button.

While holding our breath, we silently drop ourselves to the floor, so we're in a more or less crouching position.

This is the stretch of the jeans. Some people prefer to jump up and down like a frog to stretch 'em out, while others prefer to walk around in a sort of Russian dance to get those babies back to fit 'n' snug.

I've been doing this for three years now.

Sometimes I will break down and simply buy a new pair of jeans that fit, but all the while, the back of my mind holds down the allusion that one day, possibly in the far, far future, I will be able to fit into my "slim jeans."

Not gonna happen.

Freshman year I was a happy size five. I eventually ate my way to a nine, which I am perfectly comfortable with, but damn it if Vogue could throw in some models my size to break the ever-growing dream that to be gorgeous in this country, you have to wear a size zero.

Anyway, I realized that I was the first of my friends to gain the extra love handles. Whilst I ate 89-cent slices of pizza doused with ranch, they smiled behind their salads and bagels.

I was slowly bloating out, my face filling in, and my fear of the freshman 15 was overwhelming and, obviously, present.

I complained, ate some more, and finally gave up the fight. I am who I am, and I like food too much to be concerned about 15, or really, 20 pounds.

But all of this came back to me over break when my friend Todd had his own realization.

Todd has been a toothpick ever since I met him back in 2001. When he finally moved out of the dorms and into Cheese Land, aka his apartment, he put on a few pounds - but nothing to worry about. If anything, it filled his skeleton out, so he actually looks like a man instead of a 12-year-old boy.

Well, over Thanksgiving he came home with me and my mom said, "Oh Todd, it looks like you put on a few extra pounds, it looks good!"

My mother will make me pay for this comment for the rest of my life.

Todd freaked out, and now calls himself, "the fat friend."

I'm not blaming my mom, or Todd, or myself for any of this weighty business - I'm blaming the damn media and the slutty magazine business.

I'm blaming anorexia and whoever decided "thin is in."

Because believe me, I've read those words, and it makes me sick when I do. Who are these people to tell us that we have to fit into a size two or smaller for society to accept us into their scrawny, boney, no-meat-whatsoever hands?

They're no one. They used to be you and I, probably fighting the same 15-pound battle, but became too obsessed with the idea of thinness that they started to preach it to the public.

And look what we've got now - psychos like myself and Todd, worrying about filling out and being "normal," when in reality, we are normal.

Screw you, media! And screw you, jean companies who can't make jeans that magically stretch with the weight you gain! (Elastic banded jeans do not count.)

Bah!

Lindsey K. Anderson is the music reporter for The State News. Invite her to lunch, dinner or breakfast at ander848@msu.edu.