There are many definition we could define from the word of stress itself, according to the Oxford Dictionaries Online (http://oxforddictionaries.com), stress could define as “a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstance”. But stress could be best describe as, “a physical or psychological response due to an events or circumstances that make the person feel threatened or upset the balance of the person in some way” (Smith, R. Segal, & J. Segal, 2011). From the definition of the stress above, stress could be categorized into many thing depending on the circumstances of the patient. There are many causes of stress that could trigger someone from their normal condition to the state of stress, such as physical threat, social threat, finance and so on. And now, even the college students have been affected by stress itself.
The argument have already proven by The New York Times, it is seen from the graph of The New York Times issue on 27 January 2011 that there are escalation in the mental health of the college students and stress level. According to Ross, Niebling, and Teresa (1999), “college students, especially freshman, are a group particularly prone to stress.” There was several reason that created high level of stress on college students. One of the main causes is due to adaptation from high school into the college, usually this problem created by the new environment, new system, new social environment, and demand from the parents. The problem of stress usually led to the phenomenon called “freshman fifteen”, this is a phenomenon of how college students gain weight at their first semester attending a college or university. In a research done by Jatturong R., Wichianson, and colleagues at the University of Southern California, “it is showed that eating late at night (night eating syndrome) and college students stress levels have a direct relationship.
References: Oxford Dictionaries Online (2012), definition of stress. Oxford Press http://oxforddictionaries.com Ross, Shannon E. Niebling, Bradley C. Heckert, Teresa M. (1999). College Student Journal : Project Innovation (Alabama) (1999), 33(2), 0146-3934. Retrieved from http://www.freepatentsonline.com/article/College-Student-Journal/62839434.html Wichianson, Jatturong R. , Stephanie A. Bughi, Jennifer B. Unger, Donna Spruijt-Metz, Selena T. Nguyen-Rodriguez. Perceived stress, coping and night-eating in college students. Volume 25 Issue 3, Pages 235 - 240.Institute for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research, University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA, USA. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121604284/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0 (Retrieved from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freshman_15#Stress) Elizabeth Scott, M.S (2007), Stress Management Guide. Retrieved from http://stress.about.com/od/studentstress/a/freshman15cause.htm