Following up on yesterday’s story in which British authorities are seriously considering removing obese children from their parents’ custody, here’s a story of a weight loss camp for young people that seems to be showing some success.
But as the title of the New York Times article about this summer camp, “Priced Out of Weight Loss Camp,” makes clear, its benefits are available only to those whose parents can afford the price tag, along with a small number of campers who receive scholarships.
There are nine million overweight or obese children in the United States. And although the prevalence of childhood obesity has tripled since 1980, there are few comprehensive or affordable programs to treat them. Summer weight loss camps are usually profit-making and can cost more than $1,000 a week. Most insurance does not cover that cost.
For Dr. Walter J. Pories, a well-known gastric bypass surgeon, the dearth of government and insurance financing for such comprehensive weight-loss programs is “the single most frustrating problem in dealing with childhood obesity.”
Children attending programs such as this weight loss camp experience significant weight loss, but then they go back home, where the influences surrounding them are far less conducive to maintaining or furthering their progress.
The big challenge comes later, when children resume their normal routines and confront the smorgasbord that is America — food in their own kitchens and at friends’ homes, fast-food restaurants and school cafeterias.
Dr. Pories, who also heads the Metabolic Institute at East Carolina University, found that children lost an average of about 8 percent of their body weight in a program he studied over three years; but two-thirds regained all or part of their weight.
Even Dr. Pories, who has been involved in promoting weight loss camp scholarships for underprivileged children in eastern North Carolina, says, “A two-thirds failure rate is not acceptable.”
One can readily agree that two-thirds failure rate is unacceptable while also noting that a one-third success rate is far superior to a zero success rate.
The overweight and obesity crisis is real. Solutions are desperately needed. Weight loss camps like this one may be a ray of light entering a dark room. They’re a starting point, but ultimately will only make a lasting difference if they are part of a much broader national program.
The Daily HIT will continue to follow developments in the search for workable solutions to the obesity crisis. What works in Japan or England may not be precisely the right strategy for the United States, but if we can learn from each other’s successes and failures, there may be a long-term solution just over the horizon. One can hope.
