A girl on my floor won’t eat pizza at Late Night with me. That’s right. Even after a long, rigorous day of studying she refuses the carbs that Late Night so easily provides.

It actually hurts my soul when my friend forgoes calories in favor of a salad because she is “gluten-free” for the purpose of a diet.

This new health food trend of giving up gluten to be more healthy is basically faking Celiac’s Disease — intolerance to the protein found in wheat, barely, rye and triticale — which is annoying and ignorant.

This health phenomenon is heightened here on campus, and as a freshman myself, I attribute following this food fashion to proving our moms wrong and keeping the expected extra dining hall weight off.

I am not frustrated with the mere 1 percent of Americans who do have Celiac, or those who have a sensitivity to gluten; rather, it is the people who are gluten free just because they want to be or because it is trendy.

The trend started when celebs like Gwyneth Paltrow, Ryan Gosling and Jenny McCarthy adopted a gluten-free diet because they deemed it to be healthier, and not because they have Celiac’s Disease.

According to Medical News Today, around 1.6 million people in the U.S. now follow a gluten-free diet with no diagnosis of Celiac’s Disease. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/288406.php

Peter H.R. Green, MD, director of the Celiac’s Disease Center at Columbia University, told WebMD, “The market for gluten-free products is exploding. Why, exactly we don’t know. Many people may just perceive that a gluten-free diet is healthier.”

He goes on to explain that gluten-free diets can actually be harmful. If you have the disease, it is required that you do not eat gluten. http://www.webmd.com/diet/healthy-kitchen-11/truth-about-gluten?page=1 However, if you don’t have Celiac’s Disease and eat gluten-free, your diet can lack vitamins, such as iron, calcium, fiber, folate, thiamin, riboflavin and niacin. http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/gluten-free-diet/art-20048530?pg=2

Needlessly removing these helpful nutrients from your diet may cause a weakened immune system.

Beyond the loss of important vitamins, gluten-free foods also add negative substances to your body. Many processed gluten-free products can be higher in fat, sugar and calories than their gluten-free alternatives.

Lisa Cimperman, a clinical dietitian at the University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland said, ”‘Gluten-free’ has achieved health halo status. People believe that this term absolves the food of any other negative characteristics.” A snack food that has “gluten-free” written across the package is no more healthy than its gluten-containing counterpart. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/288406.php

Uninformed college students are refraining from consuming gluten on the assertion of this trend alone and hurting their bodies in the process. This is not the way to avoid gaining the freshman 15. And it is also not the way to make friends in the dining hall.

There are gluten-free sections in our dining halls for those with intolerance. My friend, Elana Blinder, freshman in psychology, said she’s experienced this section running out of food. “It isn’t fair that kids who are allowed to eat gluten take up my resources so that I have nothing to eat… I’m already limited to what I can eat as it is,” she said.

“We don’t have control over what students chose to eat,” SooHwa Yu, production chef at Pennsylvania Avenue Dining, said. “Most of the time they either don’t know it is for the gluten-free students but other times they just want to try what the cookies taste like to see the difference.”

Although gluten is in things we consider detrimental to health, like pasta and bread, gluten comes in many other forms. An easy alternative to ditching gluten entirely could be to stop eating refined carbs, like bagels for example, in favor of whole grains and less processed foods.

Voluntarily giving up gluten as if one has Celiac’s Disease is the best way to get kicked out of my lunch table. Before you start the next fad diet with your friends, do your research — you may be doing something that doesn’t actually help your body at all.

Leah Pearlman is a freshman in Media.?

[email protected]