Send Your Teen To A Fat Camp?

A former fat camper lets loose on the good and the bad of weight-loss camps.

by Abby Ellin

Abby Ellin, stomping on her old campgrounds.

Ah, what a great question!

Now as it happens, this is an area I know something about. I spent six years at various fat camps around the country — two as a camper, four as a counselor. I also researched them for my book, “Teenage Waistland: a Former Fat Kid Weighs in on Loving Large, Losing Weight and How Parents Can (and Can’t) Help,” talking to dozens of campers, former campers, future campers, and the people who love them.

And so, after thinking about fat camps — hard – for over 25 years, I can honestly say this: I am deeply, profoundly conflicted about them.

Here’s why. I was 16 the first time I went to Camp Colang, a Weight Watchers Camp in Lackawaxen, PA — essentially, the middle of nowhere. Unlike most of the kids there, whose parents shipped them off, it was my own idea to go. (Although I might have been a teency bit influenced by my beloved but twisted grandmother, who told me when I was 12 that I couldn’t visit her in Florida until I lost ten pounds). And not only was it my idea, but I paid for it, too, shelling out $3500 dollars for 9 weeks of camp out of my own pocket (my grandfather had died and left me some money, little knowing I would spend it all on fat camp.) Where were my parents in all of this, you ask? Well, they didn’t think I was “fat enough,” and believed I could do it on my own with a little willpower and commonsense.

But I knew better. My home environment was rather toxic around food. When visiting a neighbor, I would have to call home to see if I was allowed to sprinkle “real” sugar in my tea, and my older sister was anorexic. I knew that I had to get far, far away from my family to lose weight. With thoughts of a new me (and a treasured Florida vacation restored), I couldn’t wait to get to camp.

Now you have to understand that I was one of the thinner people at the camp. My first year, at the ripe old age of 16, I was 5’2” and 136 pounds. Not exactly a heifer. More than a few kids, in fact, asked me what the heck I was doing there when I wasn’t technically fat. It was a legitimate question, of course — especially when many campers weighed 250 to 350 pounds (if not more). Obviously, a lot of them resented me for being there when I was merely a bit chubby. In retrospect, I would have been annoyed with me too. But then, they didn’t know the kind of family pressure I experienced, the scrutiny I underwent any time I put something into my mouth. They didn’t know how much focus was devoted to the extra fifteen pounds I carried, which weren’t so awful in the grand scheme of things, but were absolutely heinous for me, my family, and most of all, my trim, 110-pound, perfectly coiffed grandmother.

So even though I felt like I didn’t fit in anywhere — too big for the real world, too small for fat camp — I was ecstatic. Once at camp, I felt totally, completely, utterly liberated. FINALLY, I thought, people would like me for who I was and not what I looked like! In reality, of course, there was a hierarchy at camp; the thinner girls got more male attention than the heavier ones. But this hierarchy was all in my favor: for the first time since elementary school, I was one of the thinner kids in the room! Guys liked me! Girls wanted to look like me! It was flattering stuff for someone who had felt so ostracized and downgraded back at home. I ate it up.

Social thrills aside, I also took my time at camp very seriously, much more seriously than most of my peers. After all, I had sent myself. So I had extra incentive to lose weight, because this wasn’t my parent’s idea (or wallet), it was one hundred percent mine. If I slacked off, the only person I was hurting was myself. Staying with the program (aside from a few cheats), I ended up shedding thirteen pounds, plus a bunch of inches, and was deeply satisfied with my results.

I also made some of my closest friends there, people I’m still in touch with decades later. Even today we share a very special bond, which I liken to war. We’d been in the trenches of hunger pangs, grueling exercise, uncomfortable bunks, embarrassing weigh-ins – even the lack of good-looking guys! – and we survived.

But the bad news about camp was that the entire scene bred an unnatural obsession with food. We campers used to break into the dining room at the middle of the night and steal Weight Watchers frozen ice cream treats, tubs of peanut butter, or anything else we could get our hands on. There was also a black market: money-hungry counselors would sell contraband Snickers bars, Reese’s peanut butter cups, M&Ms, and Pepperidge Farm cookies (and the prices were outrageous—$5 for a snickers bar! $7 for a hoagie!). Was it smart? Hardly. But as long as you didn’t gain weight, what was the harm?

Actually, there was big harm, because our entire existence revolved around food: what we wanted to eat, what we were allowed to eat, and what we were going to eat once we “got out of here.” We spent many a night designing elaborate meals that we would eat the minute camp ended. Deprivation takes its toll — any weight loss achieved in the artificially-controlled camp environment was bound to boomerang back in the real world. After nine weeks of soggy salad and skinless chicken breast, I came home ravenous, like a kid let loose in a candy store. I pigged out mercilessly on some days, and then restricting caloric intake with military precision on others. It ended up backfiring, of course, and I gained 25 pounds during my freshman year of college, two years after my first foray into fat camp. And I wasn’t alone. Sadly, most of us were back the next summer, even heavier than the year before. And this could repeat for years.

So you can see why I feel torn about fat camp, and why it’s not easy for me to give you advice. The best I can do is sum up both the very good and the not-so-good reasons, and let you weigh them alongside the knowledge of your own kid, your own goals, and of course, your pocketbook.

The Good: Fat camp is an environment where kids who are burdened by social stigma finally have the chance to shine. Fat camp can be the first place they date a member of the opposite sex and feel attractive for who they are inside, and not so much for what they look like. (Of course, fat camp is no paradise, but it’s much much easier to be socially accepted there than in the real world). Fat camp is also a chance for kids to NOT GAIN WEIGHT, which is significant. Camp is, in effect, a two month long reprieve where kids are embracing a modicum of healthy eating and exercising. And that is hugely important.

The Bad: Most campers gain their weight right back as soon as they hit the real world — in large part because the familial structure doesn’t change. Parents, listen up, fat camp is just the beginning. When one child has a weight issue, the ENTIRE FAMILY needs to get behind him or her. The entire household has to revamp its eating and exercising behaviors. If not, your child will be right back where he or she started. Not only will you your pocketbook have taken a pretty major hit, but your child’s self esteem can suffer for not maintaining his weight loss from the previous summer. And it only gets worse if this repeats every year.

Still think fat camp is the right choice? Okay. I’m with you. Before you dash off to surf the web for camps, take these nuggets of wisdom with you, from a former serial fat-camper herself:

* Look for camps that offer follow-up programs to help kids maintain their goals throughout the year. Following through takes a lot of discipline and commitment on both you and your family’s part. Life is hard, and McDonalds, soda machines, and Cheetohs are everywhere. But if it’s a priority, you will find a way.

* Make sure that your child wants to go to fat camp. If he or she is against the idea, or highly ambivalent even after several enthusiastic chats about the subject, beware. Most kids will find 100 ways to be deviant if they’re being forced to do something.

* Talk to former campers and their families, and see if they’ve been able to maintain their weight-loss post-camp. If so, what did they do? If not, what could they have done differently?

* If possible, visit the camps. Many offer tours during the off-season. If you are spending almost $10,000 for a summer, you want to make sure it’s a nice place. (Unfortunately some are very run-down.)

* Interview camp directors. How long have they been in business? Has their staff been with them for a long time? And, most important, do they seem to care about the issue or are they just about the bottom line?

__________________________________________

Fitsmi's Editor at Large Abby Ellin is the author of Teenage Waistland: A Former Fat Kid Weighs in On Living Large, Losing Weight and How Parents Can (and Can’t) Help, which was published in 2005. Her greatest claim to fame is naming “Karamel Sutra” ice cream for Ben and Jerry's.