ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, August 12, 1996 TAG: 9608130019
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WEST STOCKBRIDGE, MASS.
SOURCE: KATE ZERNIKE THE BOSTON GLOBE
On a sunny Berkshires afternoon, the basketball court at Camp Kingsmont is unused, the lake undisturbed. Instead, the camp's 11- and 12-year-old boys are gathered around the bonfire pit for a discussion that holds them as rapt as any ghost story.
``If you lose weight, do the stretch marks go away?'' asked one camper.
``What actually happens when you get varicose veins?'' asked another.
Campers here say they used to fib about coming to Camp Kingsmont, telling friends they were at sports camp or family vacation. Now they tell their friends they are off to ``Fat Camp.''
As America grows heavier, lazier and more obsessed with food, so do its children. And at weight-loss camps like this one, business is booming.
While Kingsmont used to be the last resort for obese children, the kids who come here now, like many Americans, just want to shed that last 10 to 15 pounds. And like many kids, they don't exercise - not even simple games of hopscotch.
``We're a health-obsessed society,'' said Jeffrey Solomon, director of the National Camp Association in New York, which helps parents choose camps. ``There isn't the stigma attached to this anymore. These are average kids.''
Some come here on parents' orders. Most come by choice. They said they want to lose weight to stop the teasing from classmates, for a fresh start at high school, for wrestling or football. One 16-year-old girl came with the prospect of two proms next year. A 13-year-old came in the hopes of wearing ``those little baby T-shirts.''
``I want to lose weight so I can lie on the beach and have people not look at me,'' 14-year-old Margot Freedman said over breakfast, as the girl next to her stirred a packet of Equal (no fat, no calories) into a styrofoam cup of skim milk. ``I just know they're looking at me.''
Some weight loss camps are more like adolescent spas, like the one that advertises itself ``in the foothills of the Connecticut countryside,'' with college campus amenities, sleek salad bars, and air-conditioned weight rooms.''
Not Kingsmont. Set in the hills off the last exit of the Massachusetts Turnpike, its neat cabins and rustic mess hall offers few hints that this is anything but the traditional bonfire and sleeping bag camp - among the felt banners that campers have made and hung from the rafters above the dining tables is one declaring, ``Fight Against Fat.''
Other weight loss camps have spawned satellites across the country over the past five years, and Kingsmont has doubled to 300 campers this year. While girls used to outnumber boys by 2 to 1, the camp is now 40 percent boys.
Kingsmont staff say they used to try to starve the weight off children, feeding them only 1,000 calories a day. But campers used to lose tens of pounds, only to go home famished and gain the weight back. Now, the day's portions tally up to a healthier 1,600 calories and 30 grams of fat.
As campers filed into breakfast on a recent morning, they were met by the smell of brownies (lowfat) baking for later in the day. They passed in front of a service window at the back of the mess hall, taking a fake-egg Spanish omelet (180 calories, 7.5 grams fat) or yogurt and cereal (Shredded Wheat or Cheerios, no Cap'n Crunch).
The goal, the camp staff said, is to give campers healthy food, but also teach them how to include - in moderation - foods they might actually eat at home.
Twice a week, each camper attends nutrition class around the ashes of the bonfire. Of course, teaching good eating habits to kids age 7-17 can be a challenge. Encouraged to eat breakfast, one 16-year-old asked, ``Can we count crumbcakes?''
But the camp tries to focus on activity more than food. As parents worry about safe streets, the Internet and TV have supplanted street hockey and tag in their children's lives.
``I ask parents what their kids like to do,'' said Keith Zucker, a former camper who now owns Kingsmont. ``They say `Nothing.'''
So campers come here to learn the games kids used to learn in the neighborhood: Basketball; hackeysack; kick the can, volleyball, aerobics and swimming. They walk up Blueberry Hill, the mountain at the back of Kingsmont's 225 acres.
For some it works.
``I did pretty much nothing before, except go on-line,'' said Mark D'Italia, 13, of Wareham, who in three years of camp has slimmed from 197 pounds at 5-7 to 170 at 5-11. ``Now I ride my bike to friends' houses.''
But convincing kids to exercise, even at weight loss camp, isn't easy.
``Every day it's a different excuse,'' said Alicia Kaplan, a counselor, as kids around her stretched half-heartedly for a walk. ```My back, my ankle, my hydrothermia, my hypothermia.' ''
The most well-attended afternoon activity? Cooking. ``You get ice cream,'' confessed Lindsay Wasserman, 13, of Lexington.
Yet if exercise is foreign to kids here, dieting is second nature. At a nutrition class, 15- and 16-year old girls debate which has more fat: A McGrill sandwich, a Burger King salad, or fries?
``I don't care if Snackwells are unhealthy, as long as they're fat-free,'' insisted Candice Sisca, 17.
The largest group of campers is the 13-year-old girls. Their cabin is a cloud of CKOne and camp gossip, and outside, a group shaves their legs and giggles over a column on kissing in ``Seventeen.'' One sighed, ``Kate Moss is so beautiful.''
But the dieting mania also affects boys.
``I've been on a diet most of my life,'' said Adam Kotkin, 13, 5-5 and 162 pounds. He rattled off the afterschool snacks in the kitchen cabinet: ``Low fat pretzels, low fat chips, fat free oatmeal raisin cookies.''
Yet even with studies showing that 20 percent of the nation's children are overweight, whether or not children this young should diet is subject to some question.
``We try to tell kids not to diet, unless there's a serious health problem,'' said Ronald Kleinman, chief of pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition at the Massachusetts General Hospital. ``What they ought to be focusing on is getting through their childhood safely - wearing their bike helmets and not smoking.''
Most campers have other concerns.
``Society tells you you have to be thin,'' said Brooke Chiusano, 15, picking over a Spanish omelet at breakfast. ``You can't fight society.''
LENGTH: Long : 113 linesby CNB