5 days ago
The summer my parents sent me to fat camp, my activities were calorie counting and endless exercise
As a 13-year-old in the early 1970s, Canadian writer Moira Dann was sent by her parents to Camp Stanley, a 'fat camp' in the Catskills where strict diet and exercise regimens were inflicted on children. Her book, ' Fat Camp Summer: Advice I Would Have Given My Parents,' describes her experiences there —weekly weigh-ins, exhausting workouts and directives to wear a brassiere to bed— and reflects on the enduring impact of diet culture.
I never thought my entire life could be stuffed in a duffel bag. But when you're shipped off—or rather taken there in an early-seventies model Oldsmobile—to a camp in the Catskills, that's a given.
