JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Children enjoy Summer Weight Loss Camp

by

Paula Lindo
2141 days ago
20190912

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.”


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored