Changing Behavior

The Challenge

Wellspring recognizes that weight management is a complex behavioral and biological struggle and that most teens have an unprecedented level of freedom in determining their own lifestyles. This is why Wellspring's intensive clinical program provides young people with the necessary tools to manage weight successfully and resist an environment that researchers are calling "toxic" or "obesogenic" (such that becoming overweight has become a natural response to the world of fast food and inactivity).

The time to act is now. New research from top universities shows that overweight children are likely to become more and more overweight, and that overweight teens are 17x more likely than their peers to become obese adults. In addition, overweight teenagers often face social and psychological challenges that can have permanent effects. The health risks associated with being overweight are well documented and include cardiovascular, orthopaedic, gastrointestinal, respiratory, hormonal, neurological, and metabolic diseases such as diabetes. Research involving adults shows that modest weight loss (a decrease of less than 10%) can produce beneficial health effects and that the heaviest people benefit most from modest weight loss.

The Solution: Behavioral Change

Wellspring believes that changing behavior and lifestyle is the only way to manage weight successfully. Radical "weight loss" regimens will not be successful over the long run. Wellspring's clinical program includes cognitive behavioral therapy, dietary therapy, and physical activity to foster a "healthy obsession."

Wellspring's Clinical Program

Wellspring starts by training campers intensively on the set of behaviors proven by research to sustain weight loss permanently such as self-monitoring, journaling, goal-setting and contracting. This is in addition to the nutrition and culinary training campers receive. Then Wellspring Behavioral Coaches (Masters or Doctoral level psychologists or social workers) work with campers to overcome any barriers to mastering these behaviors.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) sessions (individual and group) reinforce this training by applying knowledge gained through basic and applied scientific research in psychology and related fields (e.g., learning, memory, emotions, physiology) to problems we face in our lives. Knowledge gained from the past 40 years of research has taught us many things about weight control, much of which has not penetrated conventional wisdom or media reports on the subject.

CBT can help overweight people manage their biology more effectively. CBT helps them become better self-regulators who can set effective goals, observe themselves systematically, stay committed and manage the stress of everyday living.

Research published in the 1990s compared very overweight children who had received CBT for weight loss with equally overweight children who didn’t received this treatment (the control group). Ten years later, the control group actually gained weight and averaged 60% overweight whereas the CBT group lost weight and averaged 30% overweight.

A typical CBT session at Wellspring is as follows:

• Review of each student’s accomplishments in the prior day(s). The tone of these reviews will be consistently positive, oriented to problem solving and reinforcement of specific accomplishments.
• Integration of a CBT/weight control topic, such as stimulus control, 5-step problem solving, decisional counseling, and stress management/coping.
• Quiz (on readings assigned in the prior session).
• Assignment of new readings.
• Review of behavioral contracts (goals).
• Individual sessions will also review progress and self-monitoring journals, focusing on the details of each student’s efforts.

CBT utilizes methods such as iterative goal-setting, stimulus control, decision counseling, rational emotive therapy, relapse prevention training, positive focusing, and improving frustration tolerance and stress management. Many campers will take to these behaviors like fish to water. Others will have emotional issues to address and overcome before they can be successful. (Researchers have concluded that obese people are 25-44% more likely to suffer from clinical depression than non-obese people – Archives of General Psychiatry, July 2006.) By meeting at least four times each week with Wellspring behavioral coaches, campers become master weight controllers at Wellspring. This process is facilitated by the ongoing weight loss, which improves self-esteem, body image, energy, and general willingness to engage in the Program.

Wellspring Behavioral Coaches are professional clinicians under the direct supervision of the Clinical Director of Healthy Living Academies, nationally renowned weight control expert Dr. Daniel Kirschenbaum, a professor at Northwestern University Medical School. In addition to lasting behavioral change and immediate improvements in physical health and well-being, other important results will be marked improvements in self-image and mood. In a very real sense, Wellspring changes habits and lives.