There are a lot of weight loss camps out there for children and a quick search on your favorite search engine will provide you with a number of results.  So, the question is – How do you sort through all the options and find the right camp for your child?

Here are a few things for you to keep in mind when you are considering your options:

Camp Leadership – The person “running the show” at a weight loss camp needs to be qualified and experienced.  Check their credentials and look for expertise in areas such as education, behavioral psychology, outdoor education, as well as the clinical/specific aspects of weight loss.

Clinical Programming - The camp should have a a well defined program that is focused on cognitive therapy and is conducted by qualified personnel.

Educational Programming – A camp should also focus on educating kids and teens about nutrition, proper diet, exercise, and the short and long term psychological aspects of weight control.  Usually a combination of staff is responsible for this area of programming, so ensure that all those involved are qualified.

Meals – The food served at the camp should be healthy and balanced, but also tasty and fun enough to teach campers that eating well isn’t as boring as it sounds.  Meals should be focused on low fat meals that are enjoyable and should also include snacks as snacking is a regular part of most children’s diet.  If a camp does not provide you with sample menus, ask.

Uncontrolled Foods – Be sure to look for a camp that offers some sort of “uncontrolled foods” in the diet.  Uncontrolled foods are those whose portions are not regulated by the camp staff.  In essence, they are “all you can eat” parts of meals.  These are extremely important as they are reality – outside of weight loss camp most meal portions are not controlled.  Kids need to learn how to control their own portions and camps that offer uncontrolled foods provide a framework for doing so.

Fun & Exercise – Fitness camps should offer a wide variety of activities aimed at getting kids moving around and burning calories.  It is important that there a many activities to choose from as not all kids will enjoy the same activities.  Ideally, search for a camp that offers the kind of activities that can easily be done outside of camp.

Involvement of Family – Family will play crucial role in the ultimate success of a summer weight loss camp.  Kids will get a good start over the summer, but if they are going to be 100% successful, they will need support from their family when they return home.  Therefore, it is important that camps involve families from the beginning.

Post-Camp Follow Ups – Weight loss camp shouldn’t end when your child returns home.  Staff from the camp should stay in touch with you and your child after they complete the program to get progress reports and offer any advice/help that they can.

Measurable Success – The camp should have a track record of success that they are not afraid to share – in fact they should brag about it.  They should also use other measures beyond pounds of weight lost to track their progress.

Camp Facilities – Obviously, the more current and up to date the facilities are, the better.  That is not to say that an old camp is bad.  So long as they offer facilities that are safe, well maintained, and comfortable for your child.

Doing due diligence up front to select the right teen weight loss camp for your child is extremely important.  If you have the ability, take a tour of the camp before you sign up and search online for reviews, videos, and any other pieces of knowledge that can help you make the right decision.

Taking part in a summer weight loss camp can be a life-changing experience for your child.  However, keep in mind that it is only the beginning of a greater journey.  If the lessons learned are not brought home and encouraged, the summer spent away from family will be little more than wasted time and money.  Thus, as a parent, it is important that you do the proper amount of research about the camp that you want to send your child to.  Also make sure that you get some input from your child as they will be the ones at the camp.  The goal is to make the entire experience – from the first day at camp through months after returning hom – educational and fun, resulting in a healthier and happier child.

A healthy diet is key to successful weight loss and is one of the biggest things we stress at our weight loss camps.  Many parents and kids do not know where to begin when planning to eat healthier, however a common misconception that is out there is that eating fewer carbohydrates will help.  While this is true to an extent, you need to be aware that carbohydrates are a part of a healthy diet – the key is picking the right carbs to eat.

Carbohydrates are one of the three macro nutrients:  Protein, Fat, and Carbohydrates.  Protein macro nutrients are meats, nuts, seeds, dairy and soy.  Fats come from plant oils and animal fat.  They are found in various forms such as butter and cooking oil as well as being in animal protein sources and even in some vegetables and fruits such as avocados.

In our daily diets, we should eat roughly 20-25% protein, 20-30% fats and 50-60% carbohydrates. You can see where it’s important that we choose the right types of carbohydrates given that they make up more than half of our daily foods.

Carbohydrates are mainly from plants, whether that means a piece of fruit or a vegetable or a manufactured product made from flour such as crackers, bread or even cookies.  However, kids, this does not mean that you can eat a cookie in place of a vegetable and still get the same carbs.

The problem with the cookie is that the nutritional part of it, the wheat that was used to make the flour, is no longer helpful to your body.  Plants contain some very important things such as vitamins, minerals and fiber.  Those are what make vegetables and fruits so good for us!  Once we take that plant, grind it all up, process it in a factory, add a bunch of sugar and fat to make it taste better, well, then we’ve lost everything that was good for us.

So, the rule of thumb is that if you have a difficult time tracing back that carbohydrate choice to Mother Nature, then you’re going to have a hard time finding any nutritional value to the product.  So, which are healthy choices that we eat at our weight loss summer camps?

1.  Vegetables
2.  Fruits
3.  Whole Grain breads, rice and pasta (made with the whole grain kernel and not entirely out of flour) without a lot of added sugar or fat
4.  Nuts & seeds such as almonds, sunflower seeds and pistachios

So, keep this in mind next time you make the shopping list because you just learned something that many people don’t understand about the problems with most of those carbohydrates on the shelf!

You may need some time to let your taste-buds adjust to this change.  You’ve been allowing that tongue to taste a lot of sugar, so the veggies and whole grains may not taste as good at first.  Over time though, you’ll learn to love Mother Nature’s cuisine a lot more than that sugary junk on the shelves!

Childhood obesity rates in the US continue to rise and we’re beginning to see more and more children suffering from what used to be typical adult diseases such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer. Simply put, it is tragic. It is the responsibility of the adults in the lives of these children to do what they can to help prevent these kids from being subjected to these diseases.

Of course, preventing childhood obesity is much easier said than done. Everywhere we look there is unhealthy foods for sale, being advertised, and so on. Teenagers especially are at risk for developing unhealthy eating habits as they are allowed more freedom to do things away from home such as eating out with friends. However, the strains that an overweight child’s body are subjected to can be extremely detrimental to their quality of life and we need to do what we can to help them keep off excess weight. If you feel like you’re in over your head, one of our teen weight loss camps is a great way to get the process on the right track.

An overweight child’s quality of life suffers in ways that most people do not consider. Overweight children are more likely to be depressed. Excess weight carried by the body also causes unnecessary strain on body joints and organs. This can make activities more difficult for overweight children to participate in which creates a downward spiral as less activity leads to more weight gain and so on and so forth. Being overweight also affects the production of things like insulin and antibodies which are fundamental in a child’s health. All of these factors add up to support the facts – people who were overweight as kids are more likely to develop chronic diseases as an adult.

Fortunately, preventing childhood obesity is not that difficult. Kids can lose weight simply by becoming more active and eating healthier. Of course, implementing these changes can be difficult at home depending on how long bad habits have been permitted. A great way to circumvent the problems often associated with making immediate and drastic changes at home is to begin with a weight loss camp. At a camp, kids learn the healthy living habits that they haven’t been implementing at home and learn ways to easily transition them to their home life. These life skills will be the sort of things that will benefit the well being of kids throughout their life.