Fat Camps — Why Wellspring is NOT a Fat Camp
While our campers do lose a remarkable amount of weight at camp (in fact, the most ever reported by any weight loss camp), Wellspring should not be confused with the fat camps portrayed in popular culture.
Traditional "fat camps" for kids and teens are associated with:
- Strict food and calorie limits
- Weight loss during camp—but weight regain as soon as camp ends
- A camp culture that encourages campers to return year after year, without a focus on teaching campers to maintain weight loss on their own
Many children and young adults in the U.S. attend "fat camps". Over the summer, campers may lose weight at fat camps due to smaller portion sizes and increased activity. However, the campers do not gain any skills to continue success at home, often leading to rapid weight regain after camp ends, leaving overweight teens and young adults feeling helpless and like failures. Even the New York Times has reported on this phenomenon - over half of all fat camp attendees return the following summer.
To view an excerpt of this New York Times article by Abby Ellin, click here.
Fat Camps DO NOT Focus on Changing Behaviors
The difference between fat camps and a comprehensive weight loss program like Wellspring is clear—Wellspring offers the long-term behavioral change missing at fat camps. Wellspring's focus on changing behavior over the long-term (rather than focusing only on short-term results, as fat camps do) results in the long-term weight loss that fat camps simply cannot replicate. Sports, activities and diet are all part of an overall clinical design to teach new behaviors and habits.
Fat Camps ARE NOT Based on Scientific Research
Wellspring is a fitness and weight loss camp based on decades of scientific research. Our weight loss results are replicated year after year at each of our 11 program locations. While your child will undoubtedly lose weight at a fat camp, you should carefully consider the credentials and research involved in developing the program. Like most weight loss schemes, fat camps are set up as a business meant to keep consumers paying for weight loss every year. Long-term weight loss that can be sustained independently by the child is not taught at fat camps. The end result? Continued weight gain and additional stress and unhappiness for your child.
Fat Camps DO NOT Work
Unlike fat camps, Wellspring Camps WORK. At old-fashioned fat camps, campers lose weight over the summer, quickly gain much or all of it back over the fall and winter, and then land right back at the same fat camp next summer—and the next, and the next, and the next.
The alumni who do return for a second summer at Wellspring do so to strengthen their commitment to a healthy lifestyle, to play leadership roles at camp, and to act as mentors to other campers — NOT to re-lose the weight lost the previous summer. We want campers to learn to live a healthy lifestyle and share that knowledge and commitment with others, not spend summer after summer trying to lose the same weight all over again.
Fat Camps DO NOT Provide Continuing Care
Weight loss is hard work, making it unlikely that a child's behavior will change completely over the course of a summer. Fat camps leave campers feeling great about their summer weight loss, then send them home without the support and guidance that helped them find success at camp.
At Wellspring, we provide a comprehensive, year-long Continuing Care Program, that provides campers ongoing support from the same behavioral coach they worked with at camp for the full year after camp ends. In addition, we teach families the most effective ways to support their camper's weight loss at Family Workshops.
Considering a Fat Camp or Weight Loss Camp?
If you're thinking about weight loss camp this summer, ask these questions to make sure it is more than just a fat camp:
- What was last year's average weekly weight loss at camp? Are results published or presented at scientific conferences?
- What are the camp's long-term results? What percentage of campers maintain or continue weight loss at home?
- Who designed the weight loss program? What are their credentials? Is the program design scientifically based, or is it a diet camp or fat camp?
- Is counseling or behavior modification offered as an integrated part of the program? By credentialed therapists?
- If so, do the therapists work full time at the camp during the summer? Does each camper have an individual therapist assigned to him or her? Do therapists continue to work with campers after campers return home?
- How are families involved?
- How many campers return each year? Did they regain weight?
- How large is the Camp? Is it a manageable size where the Camp Director knows each and every camper?
- Can we talk to several families of campers who have maintained or continued weight loss from last summer?
- Does the camp demonstrate improvements in self-esteem and overall well-being?
