Review: Camp Shame
I want to start off this post with a content warning.
The podcast being discussed today is a weight loss camp for children and teens. It discusses eating disorders, suicide, and various types of abuse. It is not an easy podcast to listen to, but is a story that should be told. Take care when listening - and I have a ton more reviews if this one isn’t for you.
I was a child in the early 00s. Even though I wasn’t a teenager, soaking in the media storms, I still can feel the lingering effects. I’ve never been a particularly small or large person, but that doesn’t stop how the analysis of healthy bodies based on their outward look seeps into a psyche.
While kids will be kids, bullies and companions as they figure out how to be humans. I can't help but see that parents were a huge influence on questionable thought processes. Influenced by the media cycles of health and wellness themselves, parents could (and do) intentionally and unintentionally victimize themselves and their children. All of this is based on appearance being a reflection on the morality and success of an individual, and by extension, their families. I remember getting caught up in this and exploring a “kids and teens gym” that had a Dance Dance Revolution game right next to the treadmill. There were these gyms, Weight Watchers for Teens, and a whole slew of businesses and corporations aimed at getting money for making your family lose weight
One of these businesses was summer camps. Camp Shane is one of the oldest, and the subject of the podcast cleverly titled Camp Shame. What started in the 1950s with the best of intentions, through decades of family drama, power struggles, and greed became hell on Earth for kids.
This eight-part series is part journal and part documentary. It’s diving headfirst into the history of Camp Shane and the reality of what it was and what it came to be. Host Kelsey Snelling claws through decades of anecdotes, media coverage, and more to get us to the heart of camp and what it did to campers. A former counselor, Snelling was horrified by her summer at camp, and it drove her to eventually create this podcast.
The story starts off as a slow boil. Episodes claw their way through the story, each 45-50 minutes long. At first, you wonder why this story is so important, especially considering there’s a brightness to the host and the production. It feels like the hope of summer camp is blended into the podcast itself. Which, to be fair, Camp Shane did have a clear hope and vision when it began. The camp started as a decently put-together safe space. Kids could come to camp, play and be kids, and also learn. Originally, there were meal plans, pseudo-therapy sessions, and more to help kids re-evaluate and re-establish their relationship with food. All while also keeping them so active with regular summer camp activities that they would drop weight inherently. Over fifty years ago, camp founder Selma Ettenberg seemed to really want to create something positive, even if by today’s standards the camp would be questionable.
Questionable doesn’t even begin to cover what the camp became. Through ownership battles, family drama, and more, Camp Shane descended into an eating disorder breeding ground. Food went from healthy, with small portions, to just small portions. Disordered eating was encouraged to make weigh-ins. What’s more, the idea of nutrition and evaluating relationships with food stopped existing. Kids weren’t being taught they were being starved and mistreated for the sake of weight loss. Arguably, they created a yo-yo diet culture in kids so they would come back. Encouraged by monetary and media gains, Camp Shane continued to descend into darkness.
Listeners should take note of this story and what it means for us all in a place that reflects inner morality with outward appearance. While pulling at stories and telling truths about camp, this podcast is telling more truths about the world at large. The body positivity movement has made incredible strides to help us all re-frame and understand that not all healthy bodies are going to look the same. However, it doesn’t mean whispers of thinness and fitness, wellness, and healthy living don’t create the buzzing background noise of harm.
Those hurt by Camp Shane deserve to have healing, in part by having their story told. What’s more is that we need to listen to them, not just to help them know they‘re not alone, but also to remind ourselves what can happen when money and health get wrapped up in a grift with potentially deadly consequences.
Listen to Camp Shame below.
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