For comparison: experience with a children’s obesity camp

Managing Childhood Overweight: Behavior, Family, Pharmacology, and Bariatric Surgery Interventions

“…Residential summer camps represent another popular multimodal lifestyle modification strategy. Several recent studies, either open (38,39), or RCTs (40), have shown that a 4-8 week structured residential program consisting of moderate dietary restriction, fun-based skill-learning physical activity, and educational and psychological interventions, results in a significant decrease in BMI, waist circumference measurement, fat mass and blood pressure, and improvement in aerobic fitness and self-esteem. In a follow-up study of those campers staying for two consecutive summers, mean BMI at 1 year, namely before the second intervention, has been found to be lower than at the start of the intervention (38).…”

Sports camp with six months of support from a local sports club as a treatment for childhood obesity

“…One common way to motivate children to increase their participation in physical activity may be through a residential obesity camp. Despite their popularity, weight-loss camps have not been properly evaluated [16]. In the short term, this approach has demonstrated reductions in body mass index as well as improved psychological well-being and overall lifestyle in a number of non-randomized studies with small numbers of participants [17][18][19][20][21][22].…”

“…However, as most of these studies lack long-term follow-up, it is unclear whether weight-loss camps can effectively translate a successful camp experience into postcamp lifestyle improvement and achieve long-term weight loss. A recent study showed that at a 1-and 2-year follow-up, a small percentage of campers were able to maintain or further reduce their initial body mass index (BMI) reduction after one summer camp intervention [16]. In addition, none of the studies have used body composition measurements to assess the benefits of the intervention.…”

Child Obesity Prevention Intervention in Kuwaiti Summer Camps Targeting Health Behaviors in Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Screen Time

“…15 The literature provided strong evidence on the effectiveness of summer-camp interventions by creating a suitable environment to expose children to healthy eating habits and physical activity in other countries. [16][17][18][19][20][21] Because, afterschool programs are not available in Kuwait, summer-camps provide the best opportunity to deliver this type of intervention. The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of an eight-week nutrition and physical activity intervention, at a summer camp in Kuwait, to prevent children's obesity, reduce screening time and to improve nutrition and physical activity knowledge and behaviors.…”