Episode 2: A Fat Girl’s Vision

To understand Camp Shane, we first need to examine the society that created it. America’s obsession with size had evolved over time, creating a demand for a weight loss camp like Shane to exist by making fatness a problem that needed to be solved. Campers are under fed and over worked, but kids find refuge at Camp Shane. Leading the charge is Camp Shane’s eccentric yet stringent founder, Selma Ettenberg.

References:

• Taste's nutritionist rates the worst fad diets from the 70s and
• Weight Loss Program Camp Shane’s Epic Succession Drama
• The state-sanctioned bullying of fat kids
• That Shape He Can't Forget: The Bittersweet History of Diet Soda for Women
• How the 'ideal' female body has changed over time
• The Return of Rainbow Diet Pills
• Teenage Waistland by Abby Ellin
• 99% Invisible - On Average

Camp Shane—one of America’s longest running weight loss camps for kids—promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution.

But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane’s facade of happy, transformed children. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. More than 50 years after its founding, host Kelsey Snelling is bringing the real story of Camp Shane to light.

In this eight-episode series, she unpacks and investigates stories of mistreatment and reexamines the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. Along the way, she reveals and weighs the heavy price of shame.

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