Kelsey Snelling: Listeners please note you’ll hear the word “fat” used a lot throughout this series. Many of our speakers use the word as a neutral descriptor, some of them use it with pride. In this episode, we also mention specific weight and weight loss numbers. This language could be sensitive for some listeners, so please take care. Camp Shane (S-H-A-N-E) is a summer camp much like any other. A tall fence surrounds a sprawling, wooded property, and inside sit all the makings of a great sleepaway camp: A ropes course, a few soccer fields, a swimming pool, and rows and rows of bunks. When you walk the grounds, you’re sure to see kids parading around in tie-dye, counselors thickly coated in sunblock, and you might even hear the unmistakable melody of Reveille.
Arielle: So am I saying right? Reverie, Revelie? I don't know.
Arielle: We'd wake up to like patriotic music, like you're a
Arielle: military camp?
Kelsey Snelling: Is it the one that's like. That one?
Arielle: Maybe? Yeah.
Kelsey Snelling: After wake up and a bit of breakfast, campers were
Kelsey Snelling: ready to start the day, making memories that would last
Kelsey Snelling: a lifetime and experiencing many many firsts. First friendships, first kisses,
Kelsey Snelling: first wins.
Arielle: So I had my very first boyfriend, I had my
Arielle: very first kiss during a movie night, and it was
Arielle: just just really really good for my self esteem. For me,
Arielle: it was the best summers of my life.
Nelson: You will make friends at camp that you're closer with
Nelson: than your best friends in the outside world.
Kelsey Snelling: But Camp Shane isn't exactly like your average summer camp. Here,
Kelsey Snelling: kids don't eat s'mores at bonfires, there are no popsicles
Kelsey Snelling: on hot July afternoons, and revel signals more than just
Kelsey Snelling: the start of the day. It signals the approach of
Kelsey Snelling: a morning workout. At Camp Shane, kids aren't just here
Kelsey Snelling: to make memories and get outdoors. They're here to get thin.
Tyra Banks: Mikey agreed to go to Camp Shane, which is a
Tyra Banks: weight loss camp for young kids.
MSNBC: David Edinburgh has been on the front lines of fighting
MSNBC: childhood obesit for more than forty years as the founder
MSNBC: and co owner of Camp Shane.
ABC News: The goal here is to lose up to thirty five
ABC News: pounds in just weeks.
Kelsey Snelling: Camp Shane operated for over fifty years and in that
Kelsey Snelling: time was applauded by Tyra Banks, doctor Oz, doctor Phil
Kelsey Snelling: and even Oprah Winfrey. It was featured on MTV, ABC,
Kelsey Snelling: the BBC, and in the New York Times. The first
Kelsey Snelling: time I heard about Camp Shane, I was a junior
Kelsey Snelling: in college. My sister had been looking for summer jobs
Kelsey Snelling: and during a frenzied late night research session, pulled up
Kelsey Snelling: a wild looking job post New York counselors wanted. I
Kelsey Snelling: didn't even know fat Camp was a real thing, but
Kelsey Snelling: the posting promised an unforgettable summer with top of the
Kelsey Snelling: line activities, all centered around kids who were misfits in
Kelsey Snelling: the outside world. Were we intrigued? Absolutely? Were we qualified.
Kelsey Snelling: We hardly knew a thing about weight loss or nutrition,
Kelsey Snelling: and we didn't really have any experience with kids. But
Kelsey Snelling: four months later we were in Ferndale, New York, ready
Kelsey Snelling: for Campshane counselor orientation. When I first got to camp,
Kelsey Snelling: I didn't know what to expect on the other side
Kelsey Snelling: of the tall wooden fence that surrounded the grounds. But
Kelsey Snelling: pretty quickly I realized what that fence concealed.
Mark: It checks all the boxes, and it's so easy. You
Mark: send the child, you send your money, they send the
Mark: child back the way it is gone.
Nelson: It's that it's the most fun you'll ever hate. That
Nelson: sums up camp in one sentence. It is the most
Nelson: fun you'll ever hate.
Stacy: I don't know that I fully understood body shame until
Stacy: I went to a fat camp, and it's why it
Stacy: was called camp Shame.
Kelsey Snelling: This is Camp Shame. I'm Kelsey Snelling. This is a
Kelsey Snelling: story about fat camp, diet culture, and the heavy price
Kelsey Snelling: of shame. During the production of this series, I spoke
Kelsey Snelling: to nearly one hundred people, former campers, counselors, staff and parents.
Kelsey Snelling: Today we'll hear stories from a handful of them. They
Kelsey Snelling: represent campers from the full fifty plus years that Camp
Kelsey Snelling: Shane was an operation. We'll get to know a lot
Kelsey Snelling: of them throughout this season, but for this episode, we're
Kelsey Snelling: going to get to know Camp Shane itself.
Camp Shane Media Clip: Hi, I'm David Ettenberg. I'm the director and founder of Camp Shane. And I'm Ziporah Janowski David's wife and a co-director. Camp Shane was founded in 1968 and we are the original longest running weight loss camp anywhere.
Kelsey Snelling: For decades, Camp Shane was marketed as the premier weight
Kelsey Snelling: loss camp for kids and teens. It was the perfect
Kelsey Snelling: place to meet new friends and get outside camp Shane
Kelsey Snelling: had it all, ziplines, arts and crafts, and a fan
Kelsey Snelling: favorite go carts. In addition to fun activities, camp provided
Kelsey Snelling: cooking classes and nutrition education from celebrity chefs, as well
Kelsey Snelling: as group therapy to uncover the root causes of Camper's
Kelsey Snelling: weight gain. Despite the camp being a huge success, it
Kelsey Snelling: actually got its start as a humble family business. Camp Shane,
Kelsey Snelling: the brainchild of a woman named Selma Ettenburg, was meant
Kelsey Snelling: to be a safe haven for kids, a place to
Kelsey Snelling: shed extra pounds without judgment. Selma took out ads and
Kelsey Snelling: newspapers across the country and sent out brochures to prospective families. She,
Kelsey Snelling: along with her husband and children, even made house calls
Kelsey Snelling: to interested families, armed with VHS tapes, more brochures, and
Kelsey Snelling: a pitch for a summer of fun and fitness. David Attenburg,
Kelsey Snelling: whose voice was in that ad you just heard, was
Kelsey Snelling: part of that family, and in the nineteen eighties he
Kelsey Snelling: was the camp director.
Seth: David actually came to my house, gave us the whole
Seth: presentation about how the camp was, and you know, all
Seth: the great things, showed me the video everything like that,
Seth: and my parents all. I go, well, why not.
Kelsey Snelling: That’s Seth Kwitko.
Seth: A camper eighty one to eighty five, I've I remember correctly,
Seth: and then I came back as a counselor twice.
Kelsey Snelling: He was about ten years old when he first went
Kelsey Snelling: to the camp, and after the house call, he was
Kelsey Snelling: pretty pumped about going.
Seth: Level playing field, so we have nothing to worry about.
Seth: Everything is going to be cool. They're going to you know,
Seth: they're going to feed us, well, we're going to lose weight,
Seth: We're going to be active. But I felt like it
Seth: was easier to be active or keep up with a
Seth: bunch of kids that were equally overweight. So how bad
Seth: could this be?
Kelsey Snelling: That level playing field that Seth talks about was so
Kelsey Snelling: important to the campers. They were in need of a
Kelsey Snelling: place where they could feel at ease, a place where
Kelsey Snelling: they weren't picked last, a place where they were able
Kelsey Snelling: to be more than just the fat kid, because in
Kelsey Snelling: the real world, being a fat kid is really hard.
Kelsey Snelling: Here's Seth again.
Seth: Once I was in skating rink with this girl that
Seth: I kind of liked, and I was kind of showing
Seth: off for her. I was probably about ten.
Kelsey Snelling: Seth was trying to be cool and made a bit
Kelsey Snelling: of a scene by messing with a younger kid at
Kelsey Snelling: the rink.
Seth: This kid's mother was standing there and the first words
Seth: out of her mouth was A fatso And that sort
Seth: of took me by surprise, because I would never, never,
Seth: in my life would I say anything to a kid
Seth: like that.
Kelsey Snelling: I could never imagine calling someone fat as a way
Kelsey Snelling: to hurt them, let alone a child. Bodies come in
Kelsey Snelling: all shapes and sizes, and there are many reasons why
Kelsey Snelling: a person might be heavy. There's stress, genetics, hormones, medications,
Kelsey Snelling: trauma responses, metabolic conditions. That's a long list. All that aside,
Kelsey Snelling: body diversity is natural, which makes it endlessly disappointing that
Kelsey Snelling: we live in a world where fatness is so demonized.
Kelsey Snelling: When you were a bigger kid in a fat phobic society,
Kelsey Snelling: you learn pretty quickly that the world is not built
Kelsey Snelling: for you. You're judged every time you eat, you can't
Kelsey Snelling: fit into desks at school, you're denied access to rides
Kelsey Snelling: at amusement parks, and worst of all, you never really
Kelsey Snelling: feel free in your body. You're always forced to cover
Kelsey Snelling: up and lay low just to avoid harassment. For Carl Evans,
Kelsey Snelling: a camper from the two thousands, the judgment he felt around.
Kelsey Snelling: His weight soured one of his most beloved activities. As
Kelsey Snelling: a young kid, Carl loved swimming. In his hometown outside
Kelsey Snelling: of Chicago.
Carl: There was a swimming club and then there was also like a public pond. You could get a $5 summer pass to swim in. When I was really, really young, you know, kindergarten through like first or second grade, uh, I was like a fish I would spend all day in the summers in these places.
Kelsey Snelling: One summer, Carl went to a birthday pool party with
Kelsey Snelling: his brother.
Carl: My brother, he'd make fun of my weight more than
Carl: maybe anyone else in the neighborhood.
Kelsey Snelling: And at this party in particular, Carl remembers.
Carl: He just really like laid in and decided to do like a whole standup bit on,you know, even though I'm in third grade, he called 'em man boobs. That was like a real tipping point to, you know, strategic swimming for like the rest of my life. Until Camp Shane
Kelsey Snelling: That moment shifted how Carl viewed himself. He started swimming
Kelsey Snelling: with his shirt on. As he got older, he sometimes
Kelsey Snelling: used his size to his advantage, like playing high school football,
Kelsey Snelling: but he still wasn't comfortable in his body and Eventually,
Kelsey Snelling: his weight began to impact his health. In his teen years,
Kelsey Snelling: Carl suffered a cardiac emergency that scared him and his family.
Kelsey Snelling: That's when things got serious. After doing some research on
Kelsey Snelling: weight loss camps, his sister found Camp Shane and Carl
Kelsey Snelling: enrolled the next summer. The judgment kid's face, especially during
Kelsey Snelling: early development, can stick with them for years, even a lifetime.
Arielle: Where As I remember going to kindergarten orientation and they
Arielle: were giving up cookies and I was so excited. My
Arielle: Mom's like she can't eat them, and I just remember
Arielle: feeling shame and embarrassment, like, uh oh, what if other
Arielle: people heard? This?
Kelsey Snelling: This is Arielle Berger.
Arielle: I went to Camp Shane in nineteen ninety three, ninety four,
Arielle: ninety six, ninety eight. I was twelve, thirteen, fifteen, and seventeen.
Kelsey Snelling: Good memory.
Arielle: I wrote it down. I took notes. I'm an attorney,
Arielle: so I take notes.
Kelsey Snelling: Ariel still Carrie's painful memories from her early childhood, like
Kelsey Snelling: her first year at school.
Arielle: I remember even like birthday partisan school, like I would
Arielle: always be like, oh, the teacher would be like, oh,
Arielle: you can't participate, Like that's so embarrassing. So there's like
Arielle: this feeling of shame that I even associate like to
Arielle: young childhood.
Kelsey Snelling: Ariel discovered Camp Shane after seeing their advertisements. Like many
Kelsey Snelling: kids at Camp, Aril came from a Jewish family and
Kelsey Snelling: she was sent to camp ahead of her About Mitzvah,
Kelsey Snelling: the ceremony that marks the time when a Jewish girl
Kelsey Snelling: becomes an adult, many families felt pressure to present their
Kelsey Snelling: kids to the community in the best light, and in
Kelsey Snelling: the case of many Shaners, this meant being slim. To
Kelsey Snelling: achieve this, Ariel's mother took drastic steps. This is even
Kelsey Snelling: before discovering Camp Shane.
Arielle: She put a lock on our pantry at one point,
Arielle: and so it's like, what does that say to someone? Right? Like,
Arielle: what do you lock up? I lock up jewelry or money?
Arielle: Why would you lock up food? Like? That made it
Arielle: even more powerful. I think when.
Kelsey Snelling: Locking food away didn't help Aril lose weight, her mother
Kelsey Snelling: introduced her to some of the late eighties and early
Kelsey Snelling: nineties most popular diets and diet.
Snackwells Ad: Foods, snack wells, chocolate sandwich cookies so good can we
Snackwells Ad: ever make enough?
Kelsey Snelling: The snackwell cookies that claimed to be low fat, accomplished
Kelsey Snelling: this by adding additional sugar, which is true of almost
Kelsey Snelling: all low fat diet foods.
WOW Chips: Introducing new lays Wow Potato chips. They taste just as
WOW Chips: good as regular Lays, and because they're made with a lane,
WOW Chips: they're half the calories and one hundred percent fat free.
Kelsey Snelling: In the late nineties, Freedom Lay introduced Wow Chips, fat
Kelsey Snelling: free versions of some of their best known chips like Lays,
Kelsey Snelling: Pringles and Doritos.
Arielle: Something in it was essentially a laxative. You would eat
Arielle: it and you would instantly get a stomach ache and
Arielle: go to the bathroom. So it's like, hey, it's a
Arielle: win win. I just ate a whole bag of Doletos
Arielle: and I went to the bathroom. Five days were the
Arielle: bathroom for one day. It was like the crazy thing.
Kelsey Snelling: Those Wow chips were required to carry a warning and
Kelsey Snelling: were eventually taken off the market altogether. And then there
Kelsey Snelling: was weight Watchers, which got it started in the early
Kelsey Snelling: nineteen sixties as a weekly support group.
Weight Watchers Ad: Weight Watchers new nineteen eighty eight Quick Success program is
Weight Watchers Ad: helping people lighten up.
Arielle: In fact, I started at weight Watchers at seven, so
Arielle: I knew at seven years old, which is insane. At seven,
Arielle: I knew how many you know? Calories? Ornogram of protein,
Arielle: fat carbohydrate. It was like this.
Kelsey Snelling: Obsession the fat diets didn't help Ril or anyone really
Kelsey Snelling: get thinner. In fact, the focus on weight only made
Kelsey Snelling: her feel worse. All this pressure to be thin puts
Kelsey Snelling: kids at a high risk for depression, anxiety, and unhealthy
Kelsey Snelling: relationships with food and their bodies. Here's Seth again.
Seth: No one really thought about the long term effects. And
Seth: rather than positive reinforcement fostering that you know, eat well
Seth: and you'll live a long time, it's don't eat you know.
Seth: It is the negative reinforcement rather than the positive reinforcement.
Seth: I can't blame my parents for that.
Kelsey Snelling: So when all of those attempts failed, Camp Shane felt
Kelsey Snelling: like a miracle solution.
Camp Shane Ad: Located in the heart of the beautiful Catskills Mountain's, Camp
Camp Shane Ad: Shane is the oldest weight loss camp in the country. Come
Camp Shane Ad: spend some time with us, make new friends, get into shape,
Camp Shane Ad: and experience a summer that will change your life.
Kelsey Snelling: But first you had to get to Shane. To get
Kelsey Snelling: to Camp Shane, campers had to first traverse the roads
Kelsey Snelling: of upstate New York. Some kids, like Seth, had their
Kelsey Snelling: parents drop them off, but many who flew into New
Kelsey Snelling: York city from around the country had to take a
Kelsey Snelling: cramped and crowded bus. After two hours of state roads
Kelsey Snelling: and thousands of trees, a glimmer of civilization would appear
Kelsey Snelling: through the foliage, a strip of fast food restaurants. Here's
Kelsey Snelling: Nelson Jancaterino, a former camper and counselor from Alabama.
Nelson: And I remember pulling off on that exit and seeing
Nelson: like McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, and Taco Bell, I think,
Nelson: and all the kids were like, oh, oh my god,
Nelson: I want Taco Bell, I want Burger King, I want
Nelson: blah blah blah, like screaming, and like, I think the
Nelson: bus driver would like kind of like pretended like he
Nelson: was going to turn left.
Kelsey Snelling: And that was the last time most kids saw McDonald's,
Kelsey Snelling: but not the last time they thought about it, because
Kelsey Snelling: just beyond this oasis of tasty, high calorie goodness was
Kelsey Snelling: Camp Shane. Two worn totem poles welcomed to rivals to
Kelsey Snelling: the property. On the inside, forty two acres of lush,
Kelsey Snelling: green forest and hilly terrain were freckled by cabins, sports fields,
Kelsey Snelling: and a few large buildings for gatherings. At the base
Kelsey Snelling: of a notoriously steep hill sat the cafeteria. The whole
Kelsey Snelling: design was a bit of evil genius. Walking around campus
Kelsey Snelling: was a cardio session itself, but struggling up and down
Kelsey Snelling: the hill was an added workout. Kids tested various strategies
Kelsey Snelling: like zigzagging, walking backward, and even rolling down just to
Kelsey Snelling: get to breakfast. Ask any Shaner and they'll tell you
Kelsey Snelling: right away. The hill was absolutely iconic in its heyday.
Kelsey Snelling: The camp's reputation was so respected and well known that
Kelsey Snelling: a few celebrities even sent their kids to camp. Tommy Mottola,
Kelsey Snelling: Stephen Tyler, and Michael Bolton were just some of the
Kelsey Snelling: famous parents who trusted Shane with their children. Here's Nelson again.
Nelson: The really rich parents that would come in like limousines,
Nelson: and you had like a I think one summer Mike
Nelson: Tyson's daughter was there and he showed up in a
Nelson: helicopter and like landed on the field.
Kelsey Snelling: A helicopter landing is pretty cool, but so was having
Kelsey Snelling: a child star as a neighbor.
Arielle: Shaun Weiss was there and this Shaun Weiss from Mighty Ducks. He was a legend at camp, like the coolest
Arielle: kid at camp. You wanted to know him, talk to him.
Arielle: He walked around like he owned the camp. And then
Arielle: one year they even played Mighty Ducks that movie night.
Arielle: It was like having Bradley Cooper walk around. It was crazy.
Kelsey Snelling: Despite celab popularity, Camp Shane was actually quite rustic. The
Kelsey Snelling: buildings were humble and bare bone, and the grass was
Kelsey Snelling: often unmowed. Kids were out in the woods in cabins
Kelsey Snelling: with no air conditioning or TV, and it didn't matter.
Kelsey Snelling: Camp was the perfect bubble, a community of chubby children
Kelsey Snelling: who were finally free to be themselves. Remember Carl, the
Kelsey Snelling: boy who was bullied by his brother at a pool party.
Kelsey Snelling: Years later, he was still uncomfortable swimming around others, but
Kelsey Snelling: at Camp Shane he had a revelation. After spending time
Kelsey Snelling: in the hot sun, many Shaners looked forward to a
Kelsey Snelling: dip in the cool water. Carl was worried about swimming,
Kelsey Snelling: but this wasn't the outside world. Here's how Carl remembers
Kelsey Snelling: that moment.
Carl: We had pool on schedule and I come down there
Carl: and some of the guys are walking down to the
Carl: pool without shirts on. They just got their trunks and towel.
Carl: That was pretty radical in and of itself, But when
Carl: I got to the pool, it was another one of
Carl: the veteran guys. He totally saw it. He's like, take
Carl: your shirt off, and I was like, I will, and
Carl: he's like, we're all here for the same reason, baby,
Carl: and he and I took my shirt off, and the
Carl: sense of liberation of like I mean, I really mean it,
Carl: like it was like lightning and thunder crackling. Because I
Carl: didn't jump in the pool took it off. I just
Carl: stood there and looked around and like you could feel
Carl: the breeze. It was a sunny day, and minus will
Carl: have been like a Christening emancipation, you know, doves flying
Carl: off kind of a thing, because that was the first
Carl: like gigantic boulder. I took that shirt off and didn't
Carl: jump in the pool and just sat there in myself.
Kelsey Snelling: That feeling is why Carl eventually became a counselor. Kids
Kelsey Snelling: at Camp Shane could find a sense of security and
Kelsey Snelling: even pride in themselves.
Seth: I would be walking on the campgrounds and the girls
Seth: it was like G nine through twelve that I'd be
Seth: walking by and all of a sudden I'd hear Hi
Seth: Seth from thirty Girls, And of course that made me
Seth: feel good, but it was certainly an ego booze.
Arielle: Part of it was like really good for your self esteem.
Arielle: Like for me, like I said, everyone's like, oh, she
Arielle: has such a pretty face, but now I was just oh,
Arielle: she's just pretty.
Kelsey Snelling: There were so many people there who accepted and encouraged campers.
Kelsey Snelling: Here's Nelson again.
Nelson: I was good at soccer, it was really good. But I would get picked last because I was heavy. But then at camp, like, I'm the Pele, I'm like the star soccer player. Mm-Hmm. . Um, so much so that like, and when I was older, like the counselors wanted me to play on, like, I played on their counselor team.
Kelsey Snelling: Despite wanting to lose their “fat”, the F word (f-a-t) was used with pride at Camp Shane. The counselors and staff made light of fatness, which was a refreshing change of pace from the shame so many campers had carried in the past. Here’s Seth again!
Seth: the way trainer counselor. And he's one counselor who will
Seth: always stand out to me because for one of the
Seth: talent shows, he actually had a bunch of We had
Seth: all the campers from our cabin. You know, regardless of size, shape, whatever, big, small,
Seth: you know, fat, skinny, whatever the case may be. And
Seth: we went up there and we did, like Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Seth: mister Olympia posing. We actually oiled up with baby oil.
Seth: We went up there, chunky, skinny, whatever the case may be,
Seth: and we were posing, and the camp went absolutely insane.
Seth: And he was one of these guys that again just
Seth: just saw us as kids and wanted us to have
Seth: a good time and feel good about ourselves.
Kelsey Snelling: Camp was a respite kids gained confidence in their new home,
Kelsey Snelling: but it wasn't all friendship, bracelets and koumba. Don't forget
Kelsey Snelling: the camp's main goal was weight loss. Despite being free
Kelsey Snelling: from the school bullies, homework, and social hierarchies, the one
Kelsey Snelling: thing that carried over from the outside world at camp
Kelsey Snelling: was dieting. According to newspaper articles and former campers, Camp
Kelsey Snelling: Shane served a strict diet that ranged anywhere between twelve
Kelsey Snelling: and fifteen hundred calories. Meals could include a breakfast of
Kelsey Snelling: two French toasticks or cereal, maybe a sloppy Joe lunch,
Kelsey Snelling: perhaps a small chicken dinner. Kids were also given two
Kelsey Snelling: snacks a day, a piece of usually bruised fruit, a
Kelsey Snelling: cup of cottage cheese or a small bag of chips.
Kelsey Snelling: Campers were also kept busy, with six to seven activity
Kelsey Snelling: periods daily, each lasting about an hour. The small portions,
Kelsey Snelling: paired with excessive exercise naturally resulted and kids losing weight
Kelsey Snelling: like a lot of weight, and really really fast.
Seth: A kid who weighs one hundred eighty pounds should not
Seth: be down to one hundred and fifty in eight weeks.
Seth: It's not healthy.
Kelsey Snelling: The Camp Shane diet was not only minimal, but it
Kelsey Snelling: was pretty much the same for everyone. Seven year old
Kelsey Snelling: girls were fed the same as sixteen year old athletic boys,
Kelsey Snelling: and that low end of twelve hundred calories, while not
Kelsey Snelling: suitable for even the youngest kids, was definitely below the
Kelsey Snelling: recommended caloric intake for teens. Teen girls should consume at
Kelsey Snelling: least twenty two hundred calories a day, for teen boys
Kelsey Snelling: twenty five hundred calories.
Seth: Because it was like a one size fits all, I mean,
Seth: someone who was like me, who was maybe thirty pounds
Seth: overweight but was active, was eating the same amount as
Seth: someone who was one hundred pounds and inactive. That was
Seth: a problem. It doesn't lead to sustaining this weight loss.
Kelsey Snelling: However, there were some exceptions in the early years, when
Kelsey Snelling: a camper dropped enough weight, they were allowed back in
Kelsey Snelling: the chow line for second helpings as a way of
Kelsey Snelling: maintaining their new body. That is, if the kitchen happened
Kelsey Snelling: to have leftovers from that meal.
Seth: So you could be on like single bubble triples, so
Seth: you'd be like they put you on breakfast, whether they
Seth: put you on lunch, maintenance or dinner, or they put
Seth: you on all three, depending on how much weight you lost.
Seth: When they figured that you hit some certain level, they
Seth: would not want you to lose more weight.
Kelsey Snelling: Eventually, those small portions and hours long workouts got to campers.
Kelsey Snelling: They were hungry, tired, and at times a little unruly.
Kelsey Snelling: Desperate times call for desperate measures, and campers got creative.
Kelsey Snelling: Here's Aril.
Arielle: But when we had skim milk, kids were like guzzling it,
Arielle: so they had to stop. I think we had a
Arielle: salad bar one year without the dressing. The dressing like
Arielle: was very small or it was like a fat free dressing.
Arielle: And then they used to have ketchup and mustard on
Arielle: the tables for like hot dog Day or Hamburger Day,
Arielle: and kids were like drinking in the ketchup. There were
Arielle: crab apple trees, and every year and crab apples are
Arielle: like poison. Every year, inevitably a kid would eat a
Arielle: crab apple and go to the nurse and get sick.
Arielle: But it was like sort of like this like horrible joke.
Arielle: There's apples all around and you can't eat it. It
Arielle: was like very uh Bible esque.
Kelsey Snelling: And the more campers were restricted, the more powerful food became.
Kelsey Snelling: Remember those fast food restaurants the kids passed on the
Kelsey Snelling: way to Shane. Yeah, the kids remembered too, and created
Kelsey Snelling: a system to get food into camp.
Arielle: So there was like one hole the fence by like
Arielle: where the go karts are. They're like, if you deliver
Arielle: to this hole in the fence, and they give them
Arielle: like exact directions of where to pull up what they
Arielle: would see across. They're like, if you delivered to this hole,
Arielle: we're going to give you a two hundred dollars cash tip,
Arielle: but only if you delivered to this hole in the fence.
Arielle: And they did, and the entire cabin smell like Chinese food.
Arielle: There was like low main everywhere. They ordered like like
Arielle: five hundred dollars worth of Chinese and the entire cabin
Arielle: ate it.
Kelsey Snelling: The fence trick was so successful, campers continued the tradition
Kelsey Snelling: for years, and sneaking around at night became so common
Kelsey Snelling: counselors had to patrol the grounds around the clock. When
Kelsey Snelling: that became too much for staff, the camp brought in reinforcements.
Kelsey Snelling: Here's Nelson again.
Nelson: We had Matoush, the notorious Polish Night Watchman He scared the outta everybody. 'cause he was, we thought he was a vampire. Like, he just was like, like kind of wandering around. And he was there at night and he was like, fast. He was so fast. He looked like Drago from Rocky IV or whatever. Just massive.Just like, you're out. Like, and at night we're not supposed to. And you see like a, you see a quick flash of light and next thing you know, you turn around and he is like, get back to your bunk what are you doing out?
Kelsey Snelling: But a giant Polish vampire wasn't enough to curb a
Kelsey Snelling: Shaner or appetite, and the camper has found other ways
Kelsey Snelling: to get food. Ariel remembers the year the more entrepreneurial
Kelsey Snelling: kids set up a black market.
Arielle: So the boys in B12 they got a foreign counselor to somehow get almost like, like a Sam's or Costco size thing of M&Ms. And I remember there were $5 in the black market and this was like in the early nineties, $5 a pack for one like 50 cent package. It used to be back then. So the M&M cartel of B12 was like this huge thing and you could tell who's the boss and who's the muscle. I'm telling you this is like Rico, this is like the sopranos of Camp Shane.
Kelsey Snelling: Campers obviously couldn't eat their contraband goodies out in the open.
Kelsey Snelling: They had to find more unique places to snack.
Arielle: And I got back to my cabin that night and I went into the bathroom and I was eating M&Ms in the toilet. So yes. Is it disordered eating? Yes. So I'm eating M&Ms in the toilet. And I remember someone in my cabin's, like, I smell chocolate. And I was like, uh, how is this? Is this like a bloodhound? What the hell's going on?
Kelsey Snelling: The bathroom also became Ril's go to spot for hiding
Kelsey Snelling: Campshane's most coveted contraband item, gum.
Arielle: So you couldn't have your stash in one spot and
Arielle: there was one year. I was so smart. I thought
Arielle: I had a bunch of gum and I put it
Arielle: in like four ziploc bags so it was completely air tight.
Arielle: I opened up the top of the back of the
Arielle: toy toilet and that gum went in the top of
Arielle: the toilet and it lasted the whole summer. That was
Arielle: my best stash, absolute best dash.
Kelsey Snelling: Sneaking food, black market candy, and generally finding creative ways to break the rules are time honored traditions at camp. And these stories take on mythical proportions summer after summer. But they also take on a different hue when you remember, this is a weight loss camp. A place designed around how much kids weigh. This hyper-focus on food turned stashes like Arielle's into power. Seth remembers you could trade for favors, and you could use it to bet.
Seth: It's almost like when inmates use cigarettes to, to gamble. It was like we were using the hottest commodity in camp, and that was food. It was became institutionalized. It just boggles my mind. That became a, a currency, food should not be a currency.
Kelsey Snelling: And speaking of prison, whenever Shaners were off campus, they
Kelsey Snelling: were forced to wear bright orange t shirts. Camp Shane
Kelsey Snelling: would sometimes offer field trips for campers, like a day
Kelsey Snelling: in New York City or an afternoon at the water park.
Kelsey Snelling: The bright colors made kids easier to spot in a crowd,
Kelsey Snelling: and more importantly, it helped Shaners stick to their diet.
Kelsey Snelling: Local vendors were told explicitly not to sell food to
Kelsey Snelling: anyone in an orange shirt. It was extreme, but there
Kelsey Snelling: were no days off from the Shane diet. This included
Kelsey Snelling: visits to nearby camps for inner mural tournaments. To prevent
Kelsey Snelling: kids from cheating on their diets, the counselors packed Shane
Kelsey Snelling: specific lunches that they ate in Shane designated areas Camp Shane.
Arielle: Camp Shane, we had to travel with our own food. We couldn't even get Gatorade, we had to have water. Um, and they would give us these sandwiches. They packed these sandwiches. So it would literally be this soggy sandwich with a slice of cheese and a slice of tomato and maybe a slice of lettuce and that is what you would eat. We'd be outside with our pathetic sandwiches.
Kelsey Snelling: Yep, the Shaners had to sit on the ground outside
Kelsey Snelling: of the cafeteria. It didn't matter how well the kids
Kelsey Snelling: played that day or how confident they felt the night before.
Kelsey Snelling: In an instant, they were back to being the fat kids,
Kelsey Snelling: very hungry fat kids, and when an opportunity arose for food,
Kelsey Snelling: you better believe they pounced.
Arielle: So like a little boy in Camp Echo, I guess was like playing outside. And he had a magnifier and he was zapping ants. It was really hot out, the sun was really bright. So he ended up setting some leaves on fire. It wasn't a big fire, but still it was enough to make the fire alarm go off. So the fire alarm went off. Everyone's running out. Well, the camp Shame boys were outside and literally when everyone started running out and it was chaos, they ran into the cafeteria. And they just start grabbing whatever they can, eating plates that were left on the table, going up to whatever food line, but like just grabbing as much food. And at this point, because everyone was, it was chaos, everyone was running around. They were just in there eating, eating. And the counselors were like, there's a fire Get out. And it took like the Camp Shane counselors had to bring Echo counselors in to get the kids out. And it was just crazy. It just like describes what Camp Shane was like.
Kelsey Snelling: Camp Shane was a dysfunctional sanctuary, a place that preached confidence,
Kelsey Snelling: get celebrated campers for changing their bodies home away from home,
Kelsey Snelling: that worked kids to the bone. As one former camper
Kelsey Snelling: described it to me.
Mark: The camp works. The kids lose weight. So I think that Oprah, Tyra, whomever, when they look at this camp, they see a bunch of kids that go in heavy and they come out thin and they're not asking any other questions.
Kelsey Snelling: But someone should have asked questions. In twenty twenty one,
Kelsey Snelling: a few weeks into the summer season, Camp Shane suddenly closed.
Archival: Camp closed, parents left scrambling. The state is now investigating
Archival: the sudden closure.
Kelsey Snelling: Newspapers, TV stations, and even Bloomberg Businessweek rushed to cover what turned out to be a shocking twist of events. What happened to Camp Shane? How could a beloved, celebrity-endorsed camp that made millions in profits, just close its doors with no explanation? With no promise of returning? What I saw when I was at Camp Shane stuck with me for years. And I struggled for a long time with what I should do about what I’d experienced.. Part of me wanted to call the cops. The other part of me thought maybe I was being dramatic. But every time I tried to forget about Shane, something would pull me back. I started interviewing other Shaners. Not just from my time there but dating back all the way to the beginning of the camp itself. I wanted to understand how a place designed to help kids turned out to be so toxic, and how it came to such an abrupt end.
Kellye: There was no guidance. It was more or less throw a bunch of kids at a place, call it a fitness camp by starving 'em.
Pamela: It was something. It was something out of a horror movie.
Pamela: Nothing about that camp was right.
Seth: What I didn't know at the time, though, was that
Seth: he was grooming me.
Mark: this experience. It still haunts me.
Kelsey Snelling: Yet none of those things would be the end of camp.
Kelsey Snelling: Until
Seth: there were campers leaving or counselors were leaving. Kids were
Seth: getting sick, kids were getting hurt. They shut the camp down,
Seth: and I figured if they were shutting it down that summer,
Seth: they probably weren't going to come back.
Kelsey Snelling: And what were you feeling when you saw this or
Kelsey Snelling: heard about this.
Seth: This can't be used against me in a court of law. Okay. No.a little schadenfreude, you know? Good. Right. I'm glad. But at the same time, I was, I, I, I said to myself, man, I wish that was me. I mean, yes, they got their comeuppance and they got their punishment. I would've felt good if, if I was the one who caused that to happen.
Kelsey Snelling: This is Camp Shame. We reached out to David Ettenberg and his wife Ziporah Janowski for comment; at the time of this recording we have not received a reply Camp Shame is a production of iHeartPodcasts. I’m your host, Kelsey Snelling. Camp Shame is produced by Brittany Martinez, – Taylor Williamson–, Sara Schleede, Luci Jones and Aylia Yates Grau. Our Editor is Courtenay Hameister. with additional Editorial support from Lindsey Kratochwill and Grace Lynch. Our executive producers are Jenny Kaplan, Emily Rudder and me, Kelsey Snelling. For iHeartMedia, our executive producer is Cristina Everett. Fact checking done by Madeline Goore, Luci Jones, Paloma Moreno Jimenez, Lauren Williams and Fiona Pestana. Our theme music is produced by Sean Petell. Special thanks to Loren Moffett, Naomi Harvey, Jenell Manzi, Ben Wong, Travis Prow, and Stephanie Malson. Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us on Instagram @CampShame – that's with an M!-- If you or anyone you know went to Camp Shane reach out with your camp stories