Paula Lin­do

prilin­do@gmail.com

To’ren Health­care Con­sul­tan­cy’s (THC) sec­ond Sum­mer Weight Loss Camp was a suc­cess for the par­tic­i­pants, their par­ents and the ad­min­is­tra­tors. The camp, which tar­get­ed chil­dren and teenagers from ages six to 18, ran from Ju­ly 8 to Au­gust 16 at St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege, West­moor­ings.

THC CEO and prin­ci­pal con­sul­tant Leah Lewis said: “Last year, we re­alised that one of the main in­flu­en­tial fac­tors in the suc­cess of the campers was their par­ents. We dis­cov­ered that many par­ents were not pro­vid­ing the nec­es­sary at-home sup­port to fa­cil­i­tate im­proved health and lifestyle change that their chil­dren need­ed. Campers com­plained of not hav­ing healthy meal choic­es at home, be­ing tempt­ed with their favourite un­healthy meals, be­ing al­lowed many long hours of screen time with­out phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty, be­ing fed ‘what­ev­er was cooked’, and more.”

“How­ev­er, there were some par­ents who tru­ly want­ed to learn more and help not on­ly their chil­dren to lose ex­cess weight, but their fam­i­lies to live health­i­er lifestyles. This year, we pro­vid­ed the par­ents with sup­port­ive ed­u­ca­tion­al ses­sions. These took the form of two nu­tri­tion coun­selling ses­sions and one ses­sion ad­dress­ing men­tal at­ti­tudes to­ward be­hav­iour change.”

He con­tin­ued, “In terms of re­sults, 85 per cent of the campers were suc­cess­ful in achiev­ing mea­sur­able weight loss, and 70 per cent of them were suc­cess­ful in re­duc­ing their waist­line cir­cum­fer­ence, which is a mea­sure of ab­dom­i­nal fat. Our main chal­lenge this year was suc­cess­ful­ly se­cur­ing suf­fi­cient spon­sor­ship for the pro­gramme’s ex­e­cu­tion.”

The chil­dren who par­tic­i­pat­ed were ex­cit­ed about the pro­gramme and the var­i­ous ac­tiv­i­ties they got to par­tic­i­pate in. An­gel Lopez, who was in the pro­gramme for the sec­ond time, said: “The peo­ple are very kind and gen­er­ous. I will keep up with what they taught me when I go back to school. This year, I ac­tu­al­ly lost 16 pounds since I’ve been here. I would rec­om­mend that oth­ers come here be­cause the at­mos­phere is very pos­i­tive, and they al­ways push you to do bet­ter and al­ways strive for what you want, and on Wednes­days we al­ways have mo­ti­va­tion­al talks that are very in­spir­ing as well.”

Omari Gor­don said his ex­pe­ri­ence with the camp was en­joy­able. “There were lots of ac­tiv­i­ties for us to do, and the peo­ple who spoke to us were in­ter­est­ing. I’d like to do it again, and oth­er peo­ple should do it be­cause it’s a good and fun way to meet oth­er peo­ple and lose weight at the same time and you’re learn­ing stuff about healthy eat­ing and liv­ing a healthy lifestyle.”

Michael Austin said his favourite ac­tiv­i­ty was the boot­camp, and his least favourite was the danc­ing. “Peo­ple should come be­cause they re­al­ly need to get fit, some peo­ple are obese and all that. I don’t think there’s any­thing I didn’t like.”

Ron­ni Samp­son said she came back to the camp be­cause she re­gained some of the weight she lost last year.

She said: “I will ad­mit I did stray be­cause I did eat a lot of salty foods and sweet foods when I knew I wasn’t sup­posed to be do­ing it but I did it any­way.

“I wasn’t con­fi­dent in my body im­age so I came back to see if I could get back on the right path, and I lost ten pounds this time. My moth­er came and did the ex­er­cis­es with me, and some­times she put in more ef­fort than me. When I leave, I’m go­ing to try my best not to stray.

“I think peo­ple should come to the camp be­cause it’s a re­al­ly fun ex­pe­ri­ence, you have phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ties and class­es like nu­tri­tion and self-es­teem coach­ing and health ed­u­ca­tion. We learned SMART goals, and you have a vi­sion in your head that this is what I’m go­ing to do in my fu­ture, be­cause I can­not work so hard to lose all this weight just to go in two, three weeks, and re­gain it. That’s not what I want for my body.”

Health screen­ing to as­sess health sta­tus was con­duct­ed on the first and fi­nal days of camp by Drs Ste­fan Iron­side and Nisha Ma­haraj. Blood pres­sure, blood sug­ar, weight, waist cir­cum­fer­ence and BMI were mea­sured, and med­ical ad­vice giv­en to par­ents on the rec­om­mend­ed way for­ward.

Phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ties in­clud­ed aqua-aer­o­bics, fit­ness games, dance, boot­camp and kick­box­ing. Ed­u­ca­tion­al class­es in­clud­ed health, nu­tri­tion and self-es­teem coach­ing. The mo­ti­va­tion­al speak­ers were Hema Ramkissoon, Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith, kick­box­ing in­struc­tor Mu­das­sar Kara­math, boot­camp in­struc­tor Mi­ca­iah Wil­son, James Harp­er of In­spiro Well­ness Con­sul­tan­cy Ltd, and camp su­per­vi­sor Aidan Ra­ju­mar.

Lewis said the Sum­mer Weight Loss Camp pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty for young peo­ple to trans­form men­tal­ly, phys­i­cal­ly and spir­i­tu­al­ly. “We may tend to over­look it, but poor nu­tri­tion and low lev­els of phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty are short­en­ing the po­ten­tial life-spans of our young peo­ple through the ram­pant de­vel­op­ment of chron­ic non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases.

“Many chil­dren in this coun­try are de­vel­op­ing Type II Di­a­betes and many, even in­fants, are walk­ing around with high blood pres­sure. I have seen this for my­self through the pro­gramme. I find it an ho­n­our to pro­vide this ser­vice to chil­dren and their par­ents, and I hope to con­tin­ue to do so with the help of oth­ers who al­so be­lieve in this cause.”