Fat Camp: A Misunderstood Dogma Of An Obese-Prevalent Society

I had a friend who had always been pudgy and was constantly teased of her round figure and her love of eating. Living at a time when society dictates that the trendy thing is of skinny legs, scrawny arms, and flat stomachs; everyone seemed to tell her that she should attend summer camp. Not just any camp, but a fat camp. I never really understood at first what a fat camp was, until I saw my friend later that summers end a happier, healthier, more confident, and thinner person.

People have always been conscious of their weight and figure, ever since fashion directed towards smaller ones. But with the onset of fast foods, obesity started to take its toll on society, affecting not only the social standing of a person but also its health. The prevalence of obesity has led to the formation of a fat camp made especially for children and teens.

Because of the word fat in it, I had first thought that a fat camp is where obese, unhappy and unhealthy people gather to try to regain their health and a place in society. However, my perceptions about a fat camp have quite softened.

A fat camp, as how people would usually define it, is a camp where obese children and teenagers partake in activities aimed for them to lose weight, most usually through rigid diets and vigorous exercising. Most people usually visualize a fat camp like a boot camp for obese people, where they strain their bodies in order to get a slimmer body as quick as possible, but this is not really the case nowadays.

Today, a fat camp, according to my friend and from my research, is a place where obese people (especially children and teenagers) are helped in achieving a healthier and more active lifestyle through the introduction of a healthy and nutritious diet, sports and exercising, and also psychological help to those who need them. Most people would then react and say, Hey, wait a minute! Is that not just like a weight-loss or diet camp? In the true sense, a fat camp is a weight-loss camp. The only difference is that people tend to use the term fat camp more often because the participants are usually fat or obese.

Misunderstanding has always been connected to the term fat camp, my friend had said. She said that a fat camp is not much any different than a normal camp. Well, maybe except for the part of the lesser and healthier food, and more exercise, participants in a fat camp are still exposed to the great outdoors, learn how to live without the company of family, and meet new people who undergo or have undergone the same situation they are in.

In a fat camp, participants not only enjoy themselves, but also learn how to grow healthier, stronger, and more confident with their selves. The associated weight loss with the fat camp had been short-term for the past couple of decades, but nowadays, long-term effects of weight loss are now being slowly introduced. A perfect example of this long-term weight loss would be my friend. Even if it had been years since she is been to a fat camp, she learned ways to control her diet and is now living healthier and thinner. She told me that in a fat camp, counselors would help you even if you were out of the camp in order for you to maintain the lifestyle taught by the camp.

A fat camp may sound offensive to some, but it is helpful, especially to those who need them most. Many may doubt its effectiveness, but as a witness of my friend and a few other peoples transformations, I would rely on it.

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