Families join campers to aid weight loss plan
Camps find adding parents, siblings helps participants reinvent diets, lifestyle at home.
took Kelsey Galer four weeks at a weight loss camp to lose 9 pounds. It took her dad just three days to start acting like a "dork."
"He wears his pedometer around all the time," Galer said. "He's just really into it with the family workshop he went to."
Her weight loss camp and others are inviting mom, dad and siblings to share the camp experience so they can help campers stay motivated when they return home, where unhealthy temptations and habits lurk.
For her father, Michael Galer, and 16-year-old sister, Kyla, that meant a three-day family workshop at the end of Kelsey's stay at Wellspring Camp for young women in New York's Adirondack Mountains.
They got an induction into the 18-year-old's new, healthier lifestyle. Her father found himself doing aerobics and using a stability ball for yoga during the family session.
Her sister cheered as Kelsey climbed to the top of a towering pine tree and flew down a zip line.
Back home in Canton, Mass., the whole family has been reaping the benefits: her father lost 8 pounds, and now Kyla joins her at the gym. Within days, they were planning healthier grocery lists.
Wellspring is one of several weight loss camps that add some family participation to the standard menu of exercise and healthy diets.
Wellspring's camp in Pinehurst, N.C., and the Pritikin program in Aventura, Fla., offer programs that include family members for the entire camp session.
But all that attention comes at a price: roughly $5,000 to $9,000, depending on the camp and length of stay.
The results of a three-year Wellspring survey of campers suggest that family support is beneficial, according to Daniel Kirschenbaum, Wellspring clinical director.
The campers who reported having strong family support or used the post-camp program did better at maintaining or continuing to lose weight than those without strong support.
Valerie Bauman
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