Child weight-loss camp demand soars

A weight-loss camp for children has doubled its intake to cope with increasing demand from parents willing to pay thousands to get their overweight offspring to shed the pounds.

Wellspring UK has moved to bigger premises in Somerset to accommodate more overweight and obese children and teenagers who are desperate to get on the programme.

The health and fitness camp for 10-to-17-year-olds has also launched a new programme for 18-to-24-year-olds.

More than 100 campers are now taking part in four, six or eight week camps over the summer which combine a healthy diet and an exercise programme with cognitive behavioural therapy.

A four-week camp costs £3,500, six weeks is £5,000 and the maximum eight week programme is £6,500.

Campers have to stick to 1,500 calories and 12g of fat a day as well as around six hours of exercise and activities like rock climbing, canoeing and swimming.

Therapy includes group sessions and individual counselling with visits to local supermarkets and restaurants for children to learn coping mechanisms when confronted with food choices.

The average weight-loss is around 4lbs per week and 70% of campers go on to keep the weight off or lose more weight once at home.

Wellspring, previously based at the YMCA’S Lakeside Centre in Cumbria, has moved to a bigger camp at King’s Bruton School in Bruton, near Yeovil, in Somerset.

The programme helped 15-year-old Georgia Davis, who at 33 stone was Britain’s biggest teenager, to lose a staggering 14 and a half stone in nine months at Wellspring’s sister Academy of the Carolinas in the United States.

For more information about Wellspring, click here.