Gut check

I am not surprised to discover that the campers binge on uncontrolled foods, especially those with little or no calories. Two 14-year-old girls, Samantha ("Samme") from Albuquerque, N.M., and Alexandra ("Alex") from Quincy, Calif., brag that they each average 35 cups of tea a day. It's a boast that draws an incredulous "How is that even possible?" from director Madamba. "We have a lot of these," says Samme, brandishing a large, green plastic tumbler. "And they count as two." Then she mutters to the other campers: "I think that they're going to start controlling coffee and tea."

The kids also go to town with the spices, dumping Mrs. Dash, garlic powder and Tabasco sauce on their spaghetti, trying to bring some flavor to the rather bland fare. And they pour packet after packet of Splenda -- no calories and no fat! -- on their chunks of unsweetened canned fruit. The campers do sometimes get treats -- low-fat and low-sugar versions of pudding, angel food cake, s'mores or brownies. This is supposed to make them feel less restricted, according Chris D'Andrea, 27, the campers' "behavioral coach," who holds a master's degree in sport and exercise psychology, and leads the kids in group and individual therapy several times a week. More like normal dessert-eating teens.

The teens at Wellspring are normal in many ways. Back home in Palm Springs, Calif., Joann, 16, who goes by "Joey," is on the swim team. Towering over the other campers, swinging her long brown hair, she totes around a binder that has photographs of her friends and family decorating every inch of its cover. "I was at camp on my sweet 16," she tells me, savoring the exquisite irony. Get it: Sweet 16 at a weight loss camp? Joey frequently moans about missing her boyfriend and hopes for mail from him. She was also at Wellspring during the couple's most recent monthly "anniversary."

Being a fat kid, it seems, isn't what it used to be. The teens at Wellspring may be overweight, but they're not hiding from life, or opting out of romance or activities. One camper is a cheerleader back home; another likes to play volleyball and works two after-school jobs. Missing friends back home was a frequent lament. I did meet shy kids, who seemed as if they'd be a lot more comfortable alone in front of a computer screen than with their peers. But I also met major social alphas and super-extroverted comedians, who sang and rapped and joked. It may be time for the stereotype of the overweight social outcast to get a big fat makeover.

Over spaghetti, Joey notes happily that she and the other campers got to have angel food cake to celebrate her sweet 16, and that her birthday also coincided with a field trip to Applebee's, where the kids learned the fine art of finding a healthy meal amid such artery-busting temptations as queso dip and chips and all-you-can-eat riblets. At Applebee's, the campers were allowed to order whatever they wanted -- as long as they recorded the fat and calories in their journals. Most of them stuck to the restaurant's Weight Watchers menu. But one camper, who didn't want to be named because she felt so guilty, confessed that she ordered the fish and chips, which contained 83 grams of fat -- as much as a Wellspring camper eats in a typical week. It's a shame known only to her journal and the counselors.

After dinner, Joey hands out Viactiv, a chewy, chocolate vitamin supplement, which she explains is "our source of calcium," adding: "We get skim milk when we go to the Academy. That's big for us. Small pleasures become awesome." The Academy is the Academy of the Sierras, a year-round, weight loss boarding school in Reedley, Calif., that is based on the same principles as Wellspring and owned by the same parent company, Healthy Living Academies, a division of Aspen Education Group. The company opened the Academy of the Sierras last year, and charges $5,500 a month for tuition and room and board. The Wellspring campers will visit the school in a few days to stock up on more supplies, and maybe have a visit from their parents, before heading back to the woods.

After dinner, there's much gossip about the upcoming camp dance. One of the older boys, a sandy-brown-haired giant, pays one of the smaller girls the ultimate compliment: "You have no reason to be here."

"Yes, I do," she insists, sticking out her belly to prove it.

That evening's big event is a ceremony in which the kids find out if they will ascend to the next rung in the camp's elaborate hierarchy. Using surfer lingo, kids start out as "beachcomber" and move up through "grom" and "maverick," eventually hoping to earn the title of "big kahuna." This behavior-modification program uses positive reinforcement to try to encourage kids to stick with the program. They advance through the levels by increasing their average daily step count from 10,000 steps to 25,000, consistently writing down all food, calories and fat grams, recording what they've learned in their journals and being good role models to other campers. At the ceremony, campers will get beads representing their new status, which they wear at all times on necklaces. As they climb through the ranks they also earn privileges like a movie outing or extra phone time.

To get to the levels ceremony, the kids have to walk over a narrow wooden-plank bridge, which is only two boards across. It traverses the rushing Big Sur River, and as the kids line up, one boy hoots at another: "You'll break it!" But his taunt is immediately met by a chorus of "That's MEAN!" from his fellow campers.

Clearly, fat jokes aren't funny here.

Next Page: "My parents forced me to come"

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