Fascinating piece on Salon about a new breed of weight-loss summer-camp, owned by a $5500/month private weight-loss boarding school. Kids are given pedometers and are instructed to obsessively measure and document their caloric and fat intakes. The emphasis on what amounts to the scientific method (document, form hypotheses, experiment, document, repeat) is particularly interesting to me.
Alex, Samme and Joey settle on a venti, nonfat, sugar-free, vanilla, caramel macchiato with 240 calories and one gram of fat. It's relatively healthy compared with some of the milkshake-like options here. But it's also clear that the kids can't help seizing their chance for more of a good thing. They're entitled to just a "tall," the Starbuckian euphemism for a small. But they can upgrade their snack to a bigger size by spending shaka beads that they've earned at camp. Those are tokens that counselors hand out to say "Right on!" to a camper who has done extra chores or just shown a good attitude on a particular grueling hike. Alex, Joey and Samme all decide to take the supersize upgrade.
The kids relish their carefully selected coffee treats in civilization. Joey scribbles the calorie and fat information of her drink, on the back of her hand, so she won't forget to write it down in her journal back at camp. But I can't help noticing that their very fit counselor, the blond, outdoorsy Elsemore, who says her diet at home isn't that different from what the campers eat at camp, has ordered the most sensible thing of all: a 120-calorie, nonfat latte. She's not trying to lose weight; this is just how she eats. And it's healthier behavior than that of the teens who are devoting their summer break to slimming down but can't resist supersizing, given the chance.
