My summer at fat camp
Moira Dann is a former Globe and Mail editor turned author, currently living in Victoria. Her most recent book is Fat Camp Summer: Advice I Would Have Given My Parents.
One early spring evening in 1971, when I was 13, my mother called me to our dining room table in suburban Montreal, slid a colourful, glossy brochure out of a white envelope, and pushed it to me across the table.
It was a brochure for Camp Stanley, 'a non-medical slim-down camp for girls' in the Catskill Mountains of New York. The brochure featured photographs of idyllic summer-camp scenarios (smiling girls swimming, playing tennis, softball, and golf; eating meals together at long tables; expressionless girls in an outdoor exercise class). Additional photos offered Camp Stanley program specifics: weigh-ins on a doctor's-office scale, as well as before-and-after photos of campers' successful weight loss.
My mother pitched Camp Stanley to me ('Daddy and I thought you'd like it, and it would help you') and ended by saying she'd arranged a phone call between me and camp founder, Gussie Mason. I said that wouldn't be necessary because 'I'm not going to any fat camp!' And I stomped out of the house in tears.
This kind of insolent defiance was unheard of in my adolescent world. My mother called after me, but I ignored her, my heart pounding with anger. I walked around for as long as I could, but it got dark, cooled off, and my options were limited. When I finally went home, my argument with my mother escalated into a near fist fight, as I grabbed her wrists to stop her whacking with a rolled-up newspaper, as if I were a dog. When I dashed into my room and locked the door, I could still hear her yelling.
Soon after, my father arrived home, mediated a truce, and got my mother and I to agree to apologize to each other. 'But not tonight,' he said. He fed me first, making me tea and cinnamon toast.
Exhausted, and seeing no way out as I had no agency, I capitulated: 'Okay Dad, I'll go.' I remember telling my friends I was off to camp that summer, but didn't say what kind.
To my surprise, I made a new group of friends at Camp Stanley, all of us dealing with varying levels of largely unarticulated self-loathing, loneliness, fear, hunger, fatigue, alienation and rage.
Ms. Mason wrote a book: Help Your Child Lose Weight and Keep It Off. Right off the top, she said: 'Let's talk plainly. Your child is fat, and you would like to help your child lose weight. Well, I can help you.' This message (note the F-word front-and-centre) was at the core of Camp Stanley. Campers used the F-word comfortably among ourselves as a descriptor ('these are my fat pants') but not (as we often heard the word from others) as a pejorative and never as a slur.
Things have changed, and that's good. Recently released Canadian Medical Association Journal guidelines for managing pediatric obesity recommend 'using appropriate language' when talking to children and families about obesity. 'Health care providers should … avoid using negative, stigmatizing language.' Like the F-word.
I was sent to Camp Stanley the summer I turned 14. I was overweight, but I didn't consider myself fat; it was nothing I didn't think I could get under control myself with a summer of swimming, dancing, playing solo tennis against a backboard, and enjoying bratwursts with mustard (using a hot dog bun as a holder only).
I was blindsided by being sent to Camp Stanley. I learned later the nuances of this decision, but not before damage was done. It would have been great if my parents had talked to me and had included me in any discussion of family circumstances that led to the Camp Stanley solution. I could well be wrong, but I like to think I might have bought in if it hadn't been sprung on me.
The CMAJ guidelines recommend 'caring for children with obesity and families in a respectful, participatory manner.' They suggest the '5 As': ask, assess, advise, agree, assist. Ask about health and growth, not about weight. Assess comfort level, mental health, lived experience, and consider potential difficulties and barriers to healthy weight maintenance. Advise the family on how to improve health outcomes that aren't necessarily weight loss, have the family agree on a plan of action, and then assist however possible.
Much better than my experience, about which I still have nightmares.
After a long drive, I was dropped off into a regimented environment with my duffel bag, a new tennis racket, and two golf clubs. There were calorie limitations (1,200 to 1,500 per day) and scheduled activity most of the day: three one-hour blocks for a 'major activity' (swimming, tennis, or 'Slimnastics') and three one-hour blocks for a 'minor' activity, such as golf, fencing, track, badminton, baseball, archery and volleyball (among others). Meals, snacks and rest time were scheduled. I fell into bed at night, asleep before my head hit the pillow.
I often felt lonely, frightened and anxious at Camp Stanley, and would probably have been sleepless if I hadn't been so exhausted. I often felt hungry and used my stash of (permitted) sugarless gum to stave off hunger pangs. Worst of all, I felt abandoned, sent away from home to be fixed because I didn't look right. That was the feeling that choked me up, made me cry in bed at night.
There was a weigh-in once a week on Sunday morning, sometimes followed by tears. Girls who didn't lose as much as desired were advised to consider increasing their activity or lowering their calorie count to 900 calories a day – or both. It was clear to all who had undertaken this: on their breakfast tray was a plate with two hard-boiled eggs and a packet with two pieces of Melba toast.
It would have been much more humane to have access to what the CMAJ now recommends: a 'multidisciplinary team' to offer medical and psychological advice as well as counsel on diet, exercise and help keeping everything in perspective, for both the child and the family. This might not always be available or easy, but it's a worthy aspirational goal.
I lost some weight at Camp Stanley: 12 pounds total. Incrementally, it didn't feel like much at those weigh-ins, even though my clothing size diminished. After I got home, determined not to be sent back to Camp Stanley, I made some bad choices – the Grapefruit Diet, liquid diets (remember Metrecal? SlimFast?) and extremely low-calorie diets. Mercifully, I never veered toward anorexia or bulimia and I mostly managed, in my adult life, to maintain a healthy weight, using diet and exercise, each to extremes sometimes. I went to WeightWatchers intermittently, until Oprah Winfrey joined the board and became a spokesperson. While I thought the structure and camaraderie worthwhile, I was suspicious of the ever-changing point system, the ever-expanding food product line, and I didn't think Oprah needed my money.
Some obesity treatment options are available now that weren't around in the 1970s. Bariatric surgery and weight-loss drugs (such as Ozempic and Wegovy) should be considered, according to the CMAJ's new clinical practice guidelines.
This worries me. My own lack of agency as an adolescent saw me sent to a fat camp against my will. That's nothing compared to having surgery before being old enough to say no or being put on drugs whose full long-term effects are still being revealed – drugs you might have to take for the rest of your life.
I know adults who've had bariatric surgery with varying results and difficult side effects. Ozempic works quickly on weight, as I discovered since taking it for diabetes. People I hadn't seen for a while would struggle for a way to comment on the change in my appearance while silently wondering if I was ill, so I volunteered that my physical changes were 'deliberate.'
I wonder if the real reason I resist normalizing weight-loss drugs is because I want weight loss to be as difficult for everybody as it has traditionally been for me. And then I imagine myself in 1971: How would I have reacted if I'd been offered a prescription for weight loss rather than directed to a summer at Camp Stanley? I think I probably would have led the way, running to the pharmacy.
To me, the most notable elements of the new CMAJ guidelines are the recognition of how complex a disease obesity is, as well as the evident insightful compassion motivating the guideline formulation: compassion for the suffering child and adolescent, compassion for the affected family, and compassion for the health care providers faced with this long-term chronic disease.
Children need to feel certain their parents are motivated by love and will always act in the best interests of the family and the children, overweight or not. This is the optimal circumstance to undertake a child's weight control journey, with the best counsel and support of appropriate health care providers.
I couldn't stay mad at my parents, although I stayed fearful throughout my teens of being 'sent back.' I resist saying fat camp messed me up (because the stoic in me says there are people with real problems), but it did. It broke my childhood belief that I was worthy, and worthy of my parents' unconditional love.
If you have an overweight child in your circle, love them like crazy and make sure they know you love them, no matter what. Don't try to fix them, unless they ask for help.
If they do, take an approach that's non-judgmental and encourage discussion with the child, other family members, and health care professionals in considering obesity management options – all of them. Don't use words such as 'fat' or 'obese,' particularly if the child hates them.
And try not make any child feel as though they have to be 'fixed' to be lovable.
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