For many years, teenage girls filled weight loss camps with the hopes to learn how to correctly eat and exercise for a period of several weeks. By doing this, they hope to lose weight quickly. These types of programs are known as diet camps or fat camps. Over the past 20 years, the obesity rate in children has climbed significantly. There are two reasons for this epidemic, which are:

– A change in the way kids eat
– A change in how often kids exercise

Families are so busy that fast food and sugar-laden drinks are normal, every day meals rather than a treat. Instead of going outside and playing, kids are often found inside playing computers and video games. Children don’t normally walk to school anymore either. Instead, they are bussed or dropped off and picked up by their parents, even if the school is a short distance away.

This lifestyle leads to one result: overweight/obese children. Toddlers can become pudgy children and, as they age, they can become overweight teens to obese adults. However, the weight loss camps were created to break this vicious cycle. They start by rejecting obscene titles such as fat camps and express their treatment programs as fitness camps or weight loss camps.

When you’re looking at the best kids weight loss camps, you’ll need to find a program that will engage your child, change how they eat and exercise, all in a way to benefit him/her after the camp has ended. The goal behind these camps is to give kids the understanding of how exercise and food are related. Losing weight is about the calories consumed with calories used during exercise, all in order to create a healthy lifestyle.

There is a prominent reason behind these camps and that is children are exercising with children who have similar issues. During gym classes, overweight children have a hard time staying caught up with the rest of the average weight peers, either they’ll try hard or give up. However, when overweight children workout together, they can cheer each other on and don’t have to fear of being made fun of for being clumsy. In these camps, there’s no reason for fear and shame in physical activities. These activities become competitions against people who are evenly matched; impolite, obscene comments are replaced with support and enthusiasm.

A child feels more confident if he/she understands that they tried hard and did the best they could. While a mere couple of weeks or month won’t undo the years of an inactive lifestyle, an obese child/teen is given the groundwork to a healthier future.