Healthy Weight Loss Blog

Years ago, the term “fat camp” brought to mind horror stories. Fat camps were thought to be miserable places, with mean staff that push people harder than they are comfortable being pushed. Have you ever thought about how a child thinks about fat camp as a result of those stories? Think about their opinion of a place where they are forced to exercise, eat foods they don’t like, avoid candy and snacks, and are not able to do the kinds of things they enjoy like watching TV and playing video games.

To a child, this is like punishment or torture. But now let’s look at what the staff is really doing/teaching kids:

- They are trying to teach children about healthy food choices
- Exercise burns calories, but can also be incredibly fun - you just have to find an activity that you enjoy!
- They are limiting the sugar and carb-filled snacks that add to the fat problem
- You can have just as much fun, or more, when you’re actively entertaining yourself (e.g. playing games, swimming, etc.)

If you are considering sending your child to a weight loss camp, take some time to explain to them that it is not punishment but is a learning opportunity that will benefit them for the rest of their lives. The faculty employed at fitness camps are experts in child weight loss. Children should feel good about the idea of eating good food and playing games with children that they will identify with easily. Instead of allowing them to focus on the negative that they see, try to get them to see the positive aspects of weight loss camps.

Going to a summer weight loss camp can be great for a child if it is used as the resource that it is. It is unlikely that your child will ever be surrounded by so many professionals with so much experience in dealing with childhood obesity again in their lives, so tell them to take advantage of that! Sure, they’ll have to make some changes to their diet and will be a bit more active, but these are good things! Our weight loss camps do a great job of finding activities for kids to participate in that are fun, plain and simple…to the point that many kids forget that they’re “exercising” while they do them.

It is important as a parent to understand what will be happening at the camp and to get involved with your child’s health. Unfortunately, some children that go to fat camp and lose weight end up gaining all that weight back within weeks of returning home. Why is this? As a parent sometimes we look at camp as a solution. For some reason, we think that kids coming home have somehow been “cured” of a disease and can go back to their old, bad habits. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. Camp is the beginning of a lifelong process. Once our children get back home, we as parents have to help them stay on the same diet and exercise program that they learned at camp.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 at 4:49 am and is filed under Weight Loss Programs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.