Should your child attend "fat camp"?

This summer, thousands of oversized kids are attending what some derisively call "fat camps" in hopes of losing weight. While you read this, they are exercising, perhaps for the first time since toddlerhood, while learning about nutrition and eating meals with portions that many would consider a light snack.

It is part of a reaction to a crisis both perceived and real. Young people more than ever are feeling the pressure to look fit and trim. However, it is not just body-image issues that drive this trend. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, the percentage of young people who are overweight has more than tripled since 1980--and obesity, the CDC indicates, clearly is tied to numerous health problems, including hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, and coronary heart disease. The problem does not just stop with overweight youngsters, though. Lifelong eating habits are established in childhood. The result is that the U.S. is in a population-wide obesity crisis.

The experts are at odds with each other over some aspects of weight control. When the Department of Agriculture released its new food pyramid, many critics cheered that, at last, better guidance was being given to consumers on making healthy food choices. Yet, even the new pyramid--which makes more recommendations about quantities of food and exercise, and allows for individual differences, among other things--has been criticized as insufficient.

"It's clear that we need to rebuild the pyramid from the ground up, not just tip it on its side and dress it up with new colors," stresses nutritionist Walter Willett of Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

"Obesity is a matter of nutrition, not willpower," insists Henry Anhalt, director of the Division of Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in New Jersey. "It involves a total lifestyle change."

COPYRIGHT 2006 Society for the Advancement of Education
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning