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- [00:04]
A
It's Friday, Aug. 7, 2026, from peach fish Productions. It's the gist. I'm Vanessa Quirk, the other host of Uncertain Things, filling in for Mike this week. So today we are re airing Mike's interview with Kelsey Snelling. So Snelling is the creator of Camp Shame, which is a podcast all about one of America's longest running weight loss retreats called Camp Shane. You see what they did there? Yes. Across the eight episodes of the podcast, Snelling uncovers the severe mistreatments that kids suffered while they were enrolled there. And she digs into this culture of fatphobia that made the camp so successful in the first place. And in this conversation, Mike is gonna ask her all about that reporting, but he also pushes back and it gets pretty heated. So make sure to stay through to the second half of this episode. It gets pretty intense. All right. With that, enjoy Mike's conversation with Kelsey Snelling.
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B
Did you know that when helping older Navy dolphins, a researcher unlocked a secret to healthy aging for all of us, even the non dolphins among us. And you know, everyone loves dolphins. And I hope I can convince you to love yourself just like our flippered friends. You're worth it. I'm excited to share with you guys. C15 from Fatty 15, the first emerging essential fatty acid to be discovered in more than 90 years. It's an incredible scientific breakthrough. It supports long term health and wellness and healthy aging. So the founder of Fatty 15, Dr. Stephanie Van Watson, discovered the benefits of C15 while working with the US Navy to continually improve the health and welfare of older dolphins. She went to the dolphin retirement home and she noticed some of them were really thriving. What do they have? It's what is now called C15. She did studies on cellular fragility syndrome caused by the lack of C15. As many as one in three people, I can't give you the dolphin percentage worldwide may have C15 levels and fragile cells. We're all aging, which means that healthy aging starts from birth. Studies have shown that C15 is a foundational nutrient for you and for flipper. I'm taking fatty 15. They give it to you in a nice glass vial. I pop one every day and I have to say I feel a little bit more energy. And I've been very successful at disabling bombs with my nose underwater. No, I joke about that, but I do feel a little Vim. Fatty 15 was developed to support healthy aging for all, from kids to parents to grandparents. That's why award winning fatty 15 is now available as pure capsules, Delicious apple mint gummies for teens and adults, and Yummy Berry blast gummies for kids. Fatty 15 is on a mission to support healthy aging for all, including all ages and stages of life. You can get an additional 15% off their 90 day subscription starter kit by going to fatty15.com gist and using code gist at checkout. So coffee's good, but you hit it too late and then you're up and coffee doesn't do the trick. You're at that jittery phase. Enter Roon. Roon was built for exactly that moment. It's a nicotine free focus pouch designed to help you stay locked in when your energy starts to fade. It uses the same pouch format that the nicotine pouches do, but that's not what it is. It just is the delivery system that if you've ever done a nicotine pouch, you know that works. I mean, people who use them really can't live without them. That's how effective they are. And what's really in there is that each pouch contains 80mg of caffeine plus L theanine and dynamine and TIA crine for focused energy. It's all listed on the label. No surprises there. Scientists founded it, MIT and and Harvard scientists. At last, six to eight hours. Dynamite slows how quickly the body clears caffeine. It effectively stretches its half life, if you want to think of it that way. So a single pouch holds focus through the long stretch instead of spiking and fading after the first hour. No crash, no jitters, just convenience. Visit takeroon.com gist and use discount code gist at checkout to get an extra 10% off any subscriptions or for a total savings of 64%. That's t a k e r o o n.com/gist and use code GIST at checkout for up to 64% off. I was a camp counselor, though never a camper. Shout outs to Echo Lark and Locanda. And they're at those camps. Every once in a while we would have what's called an intercamp where you play another camp. And every once in a while the intercamp would be a bunch of campers who all wore red shirts or orange shirts. And you would say, oh, these campers seem a little atypical from the normal camper that we usually play our inter camps against. And then someone would tell me, oh, this is a. And here's the term they used at the time. A fat camp. Now I have to say the kids from the quote unquote fat camp were often quite good at sports and held their own against Echo, Lark, and laconda. Maybe that says something about my coaching, but the entire concept of the fat camp, even in the early 90s, seemed a little retro, out of date, possibly not helpful to me. Well, it turns out things were, let us say, more unusual than I even thought. One of these. I'm going to use the term again. Sorry. Fat camp was called Camp Shane. It was first in Ferndale, New York, and then in Connecticut. And Camp Shane was notable for having these splashy ads in the New York Times Magazine with a kid holding out his pants showing how much weight he had lost during the summer. By the way, those ads were real. Kids did lose a lot of weight. But in a new podcast series called Camp Shame, host and executive producer Kelsey Snelling reveals the kids lost a lot more. Hello, Kelsey. Welcome to the Gist.
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C
Hi. Thanks for inviting me.
- [06:29]
B
Am I violating some show, use a phrase other than fat camp to describe these camps, even though that's what they proudly call themselves?
- [06:38]
C
Yeah, I mean, everybody's different. People have different preferences. Some people call them weight loss camps, but Shaners, that's how we refer to campers of Camp Shane. They called it a fat camp. They were well aware of where they were. So even in my podcast, we do refer to it as a fat camp. Yep.
- [06:54]
B
Where they were, why they were there. So let's take it through the history, then. We're going to take it through your experience with Camp Shane, even though the podcast is Camp Shame, and that's not a misprint, that's intentional. How was it founded? Who founded it? What was the principle?
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C
Sure. So Camp Shane was founded in 1968 by a woman named Selma Ettenberg. The first summer that they were in operation was 1969. And the purpose of the camp was to help kids manage their weight. Selma herself was overweight as a child and as a teen, and she seems to have really created it out of a. A place where she was trying to help kids. She wanted them to conform to societal norms because she found in her experience that that was what improved. So, you know, these campers would come to Camp Shane. This was in the middle of nowhere in the Catskill Mountains. They had meal plans. The food was quite restricted. There were all kinds of activities that the kids were given, you know, lots of exercise throughout the day, and they did lose weight. And in fact, it was so successful and such a successful model that the camp continued to operate for over 50 years.
- [08:10]
B
Okay, so Generations of kids would go to Camp Shane. It, quote, unquote, worked in that they'd come into camp at one weight, they'd leave camp at a much lighter weight. But then. And you would think, even from what we Knew in the 1970s, this should have raised some sort of red flag. It wasn't rare for the same campers to keep coming back. In fact, it was sort of the business model that that would happen. Two part question, why? Which we'll get at their weight loss methods. And even back then, before some of the abuses that you document, didn't anyone suspect that something was going wrong if this is how it worked?
- [08:50]
C
That's a great question. Camp Shane was notorious for repeat customers. These kids, they're in this program, enrolled in this program for anywhere between six and nine weeks, or, sorry, anywhere between three and nine weeks every single summer. And. And they're in a severe calorie deficit. Like I said, they're working out up to six, seven hours a day. Of course they're going to lose a ton of weight. The issue is that Camp Shane did not use a sustainable method of weight loss. And we can get into that. There really are no super sustainable ways. But they also didn't prepare kids for going back into the quote, unquote, real world. So these kids would lose exorbitant amounts of weight, they would go back home, they would go back to school, they're sitting all day in their classrooms, they're going back to eating what they ate at home prior to their Hampshain experience. And there's just no real world model where that level of weight loss is sustainable. So kids would come back the next year, oftentimes thinking, I'll get it right this year. Maybe I just did something wrong. Maybe I didn't have enough willpower. And that cycle just continued for years and years. There were campers who were there for a decade and yeah, and then of course, campers also built these really lasting relationships with their friends and their peers and their counselors. And so there was a big social component to Camp Shane where kids felt like they fit in for once in their lives. And that was also a big draw. And that's why kids continued to go back year after year.
- [10:20]
B
Right. Even back then, without the phrase or the language for it. There was a fat acceptance component to Camp Shane, even if what they were trying to do was quite inexpertly getting kids to lose weight. So you interviewed a lot of people. I don't know if you interviewed so many from that era, the era when we really and truly didn't know better about weight loss. But do you have any way of knowing how many people stick by Camp Shane? How many people who went there said, yeah, it wasn't perfect, but actually did help me on my weight loss or even body acceptance goals?
- [10:56]
C
Yeah, that's a great question. I don't believe I've spoken to anyone so far who has said Camp Shane helped me maintain weight loss into my adulthood. Like I said, plenty of people did lose weight temporarily, and plenty of people will tell you Camp Shane helped them greatly with their confidence and their self worth in certain ways. The problem that a lot of people have is that once they're out of the camshain bubble, that confidence is gone. Their self worth very much became tied to their size. And you know, that isn't just the doing of Camp Shane. We live in a culture that gives us that messaging all of the time. But Camp Shane certainly encouraged that sort of mindset.
- [11:39]
B
Yes.
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C
And in a lot of the younger campers, that really is where they say that it started for them.
- [11:45]
B
Right. But it did address a need, perhaps a perceived need, a societal need. It was doing it, let's say in the 1970s through the 80s and in something like the best way we knew how, there wasn't great follow up. But this is true not just for a weight loss camp. This is true for, I mean, pretty much every aspect of society. So in a way, I don't know if you want to say, I'll give them a pass. It would seem pretty weird if they had this weight loss camp and campers coming back every 10 years if no one said maybe we should do something different. But I don't know that Weight Watchers as an institution to take a famous one, I don't know that they were doing things much differently. You know, repeat customers were probably a big part of their business model too, right?
- [12:28]
C
No, I completely agree. And if you talk to campers and counselors from that time, there were a lot of shady things going on in the 70s and the 80s. But most people don't tend to complain as much about the weight loss component because to your point, back then it was. People were figuring it out. Weight loss camps were relatively new. I don't think a lot of people really understood the dangers of this type of weight loss. Those campers now as adults fully realize that this was not a healthy thing for them. A lot of these campers have gone through therapy, have tried all kinds of diets, have really struggled for all of their adult lives with their body issues. And their weight issues.
- [13:13]
B
Yeah. When did the ownership structure of camp begin to change? This bulk beloved, as per your reporting woman who founded the camp, maybe towards the end, she got into fights with her son. But when did the structure really start to change in a way that you reported out and that campers could feel?
- [13:32]
C
Yeah, things really started to change in the late 80s when Selma's son, David Attenberg, started to become a lot more involved with the camp. David was involved, I would say, mostly against his will. He was not really interested in participating in his mother's business.
- [13:49]
A
Business.
- [13:49]
C
He was not really interested in running a fat camp. But he kind of got sucked into it as the child of this woman. And he became the director. In the early 80s, things started to shift a little bit. And then in the early 90s, I think it was 1992, he became full owner of the camp. And the thing with David is that his approach was significantly different to Selma's. Selma. Selma had her issues. Selma was a little bit crazy. But Selma really did create the camp out of this need that she saw for kids to have a place where they could belong, where they could try different activities away from their thinner peers, where they could have a boyfriend or a girlfriend for the first time. And of course, while all of that was happening, she was simultaneously starving them and causing them to lose significant amounts of weight. But with David, it's very unclear what his motivations were.
- [14:47]
B
I'd say cash cow.
- [14:48]
C
Yeah, I mean, he made a lot of money. That certainly was a motivation. And you would think there are probably other ways he could have made money. But I think it was just easy for him. He kind of fell into it. It was a cash cow. He had been thin his whole life. He didn't really have any interest in the inner lives of these fat campers. He didn't really understand them the way that Selma had. He took a much more hands off approach to the point of things eventually becoming quite negligent.
- [15:17]
B
So so far we've established this is a camp that maybe if you want to cut them the maximum amount of slack, they were doing things as best they could, as best they knew. They were also making a lot of money and probably not doing enough follow up and due diligence, asking fundamental questions. Then a new owner takes over and things begin to shift and things begin to get right, rather than just a little shady. Quite dangerous. Tell me, maybe you could bring it up through when you were there, but tell me about some of the real abuses that you documented. For instance, earlier you said something like, you Know, they didn't get the. They didn't do the counseling that was maybe necessary. That was something that stood out to me in the reporting. Just the lack of mental counseling and especially regarding who they took in as campers. But go ahead.
- [16:02]
C
Absolutely. So we can start with the smaller things. The facilities were not as advertised. They were in disrepair. The equipment was not in good shape. And you have to remember that these campers are spending, in my time, which was 2011, about $10,000 per camper per summer. So there was plenty of money coming in. At the camp's peak, they had about 600 campers. That's tons and tons of money, right?
- [16:29]
B
Yeah, it's.
- [16:29]
C
And yet none of this was being funneled down into the camp itself, into the infrastructure. The staff was largely untrained. I remember in my time, you know, we did some icebreakers during orientation. We, I think, did some role playing with, like, here's how you resolve conflict between campers. But there was no training specific to the content of the camp, which really stood out to me and a lot of other staff. So there was no training in how to identify eating disorders. There was no actual nutritional training in terms of, like, this is our nutritional philosophy. These are the guidelines that we're trying to follow.
- [17:06]
B
Didn't they advertise that there was?
- [17:08]
C
They sure did. Yep. They advertised for many, many years that this was a medically supervised camp, that there were psychologists that were there to take care of these issues with the campers. They said that there were therapists. They said that there were professional nutritionists.
- [17:24]
B
And none of that just wasn't true. They just lied about it or, like, did a, what, one day consultation with a nutritionist and call that we have a nutritionist on staff?
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C
They would essentially advertise these professional doctors on their website. When parents would inquire about the doctors, they were led to believe that these staff were on site working day in and day out with their children. The way that they probably legally got around it was they didn't actually use the words on site on their website. So they would have these big pictures and bios posted, but they were very careful in the language that they chose. Everything about the website insinuated that these people were on site, but they never explicitly said that.
- [18:08]
B
And so another thing that jumped. Sorry to interrupt. But another thing that really jumped out to me was that obviously a lot of kids, teenagers, might need some psychological counseling here and there, but this camp also admitted as campers, kids who were in desperate need of psychological counseling. That was documented before they Got in and they just ignored that problem because it would have cost money to counsel them, Right?
- [18:36]
C
That's right. Yeah. A lot of these kids, you can imagine, are coming in with all sorts of issues. Many of them, sadly, came from families who created their body image issues. A lot of these kids struggled with their self worth. A lot of these kids were bullied. A lot of these kids had been on diet since they were six years old, and they internalized a lot of that failure. So already, just because of the demographic of the campers, you know, that you are going to need some kind of psychological or therapeutic intervention. And then on top of that, there were kids coming to camp who had documentation that said, you know, I have a history of self harm. I have a history of suicide. And again, Camp Shane promised these resources that it just did not deliver on.
- [19:27]
B
All right, tell me about your time as a counselor. How did you get there? 2011. What did you see?
- [19:33]
C
Yes. So when I went to camp, I had never heard of Camp Shane before. I knew about fat camps from the movie Heavyweights, which comes up frequently when I'm talking about Camp Shayne. But. But I had no idea that they were actually real places. I did not know that fat camps were something that we as a society agreed was a good idea. However, my sister was looking for a summer job. She found the website for Camp Shane. And based on the website, it actually looked like it could be a really great experience because they did advertise that they had these medical experts. They did really push the inclusivity component, which was really exciting for me to be in a place where these kids felt. Felt like themselves for the first time. And they had all kinds of cool activities on the website. There was paintball, there was a lake, all kinds of crazy things. And I wanted to spend a summer in the woods. I had, at that point, had quite a few years of. Of an interest in body politics and body positivity and that kind of thing. And I really thought going into this, that we were going to help kids develop their body image. I really thought that going into this we were going to be teaching them those healthier habits, mentally and physically, rather than it being about weight loss at any cost. So when I got there, you know, I was really disappointed by what I saw. Again, the really rundown facilities. No one really seemed to know what was going on or what they were doing. I'm talking to these other counselors, and none of them are really trained in their areas of expertise. Expertise. So, for example, I was the arts and crafts instructor. I Knew a little bit about making crafts, you know, no big deal. But we had, like, a basketball instructor who didn't know anything about basketball. We had, you know, I think there was an archery instructor who, like, who. No one knows how to do archery. So all of that was a little bit shady. And I figured, well, this is orientation. Once the kids get here, things are going to get better. Yeah. The first day that the campers get there, I'm noticing that, you know, some kids are arriving and they're excited and they're hugging their old friends. And, you know, I've been going to this camp for six years, and I know everybody here and I know some of the counselors, but then there were other kids who were shaking, who were crying, who were just beside themselves. And my naive assumption was, oh, these kids are young, they're homesick, they don't want to be here, and that's that. But as I started to talk to my campers, I learned that a lot of them were return campers, and they knew how bad it was going to be. And that was really the source of the tears and the panic attacks. And, I mean, that was, did you
- [22:14]
B
want to come back or did their parents force them to come back?
- [22:17]
C
Many campers were forced to go by their parents. There were certainly campers who chose to go and. And I don't know if we can really say that they consented to go to this camp. When you're 12 years old and you are so desperate to fit in, you know, and you maybe you go to camp and you see all these red flags and you decide to return the next year anyway, because that's how much being thin means to you. I don't know that we can really say in that case that those campers chose to be part of the Camp Shane machine. Um, there were a handful of campers who were like, I love it. I come, I lose the weight. You know, no harm, no foul.
- [22:55]
B
Right.
- [22:56]
C
But that certainly wasn't the case for everybody.
- [22:58]
B
We'll be back in a minute with more of Kelsey Snelling of Camp Shame. You call the next segment the challenge round. So coffee's good, but you hit it too late, and then you're up, and coffee doesn't do the trick. You're at that jittery phase. Enter Roon. Roon was built for exactly that moment. It's a nicotine free focus pouch designed to help you stay locked in when your energy starts to fade. It uses the same pouch format that the nicotine pouches do. But that's not what it is, it just is the delivery system that if you've ever done a nicotine pouch, you know, that works. I mean, people who use them really can't live without them. That's how effective they they are. And what's really in there is that each pouch contains 80mg of caffeine, plus L theanine and dynamine and TIA crine for focused energy. It's all listed on the label. No surprises there. Scientists founded it, MIT and Harvard scientists. It lasts six to eight hours. Dynamite slows how quickly the body clears caffeine. It effectively stretches its half life, if you want to think of it that way. So. So a single pouch holds focus through the long stretch instead of spiking and fading after the first hour. No crash, no jitters, just convenience. Visit takerune.com gist and use discount code gist at checkout to get an extra 10% off any subscriptions for a total savings of 64%. That's t a k e r o o n.com gist and and use code gist at checkout for up to 64% off. We're back with Kelsey Snelling of Camp Shame. And so here's my personal reaction to the podcast. Kelsey, I think you did a great job with the podcast. At the end, you are entitled to give your take. We heard a lot of your analysis, which was closely tied to the body positivity fat acceptance movement, if you want to call it that. I've covered this movement before and I do think it has some real value, but I also think parts of it go way too far. There is a segment of the health at any size movement that frankly, has been shown to be medically inaccurate. It's become more of an ideology than a health perspective at times. So I'll give you a quote from someone who's part of this movement. She's the director of the national association to Advance Fat Acceptance, Tigris Osborne. Here's the quote. Putting the burden of weight loss on the individual doesn't address the root issues. When we locate the problem in the body, not in the discrimination, people will locate the bad things that happen to you instead of in the bad behavior that is happening to you. Look, sometimes that's true. Root causes are important. But sometimes individuals have agency. Not that it's easy in this food environment or with the messages we receive with the addictive properties and some food. I've covered that at length. But the problem with being, let us say, very, very overweight, what they used to Call morbid obesity isn't just that other people will treat you poorly. There's a real problem for the individual, a health problem. And based on medical literature that what they call now type three obesity. I think morbid obesity, it's not neutral in terms of health. And I don't think the answer is to adopt every tenant of the fat acceptance movement to recognize that camp shame was harmful.
- [26:27]
C
Right. Okay. Two separate things are going on here. I do want to address what you said in the latter part of that, but first let's talk about what Tigra says. What she's referring to is that when you are a fat person in this world, people will blame everything on your weight. And I think we can all agree that that's wrong. Just because someone is fat doesn't mean that they're not hard working, doesn't mean that they're not a kind person, doesn't mean that they're lazy. There are a lot of reasons why, why people might be heavy and we can get into that. What she's saying in that statement is that when you go through life as a fat person, often the response to discrimination is, well, if you just lost weight, you wouldn't be in this position. Rather than saying that is actually very hateful speech and this is discrimination and that's wrong. So that's what she's referring to there.
- [27:20]
B
Right. But putting the burden of weight loss on the individual doesn't address the root issues. Often that's true of discrimination. Putting the burden of weight loss on the. Of discrimination. Okay, all right.
- [27:33]
C
You see what you're saying there? Yeah, I think, yeah. In.
- [27:37]
B
Well, yeah, I would take as a given that we shouldn't be cruel or discriminate against.
- [27:42]
C
Well, you would think that, but I presume you've never lived in a fat body and plenty of people, I mean, just go to. You're on the Internet all the time. You know how cruel people are to fat people.
- [27:53]
B
Right.
- [27:54]
C
And it shouldn't be that way.
- [27:56]
B
Right. But there is an illegitimacy to the goal of weight loss. And we could asterisk this. And what I'm saying is in the national association to Advance Fat Acceptance in the Body Positivity Movement. Movement, there is an illegitimacy to a goal of weight loss or healthy weight or not having. Not being morbidly obese, for instance. And I more than question that. I think that they have taken that too far. And obesity is a problem in our society. One of the problems is that people treat the obese unfairly and Cruel. And there is no excuse for that. On the other hand, they. There are good reasons, not just because of the opinions of others or the cruelty of society, not to be obese. And a fat camp like fat camp, a weight loss camp like Camp Shane, especially in the last 20 years, was just an abomination, but for much of its existence, I think was trying to do the reasonable thing of help people, helping kids lose weight, which is in most ways a laudable goal, I think.
- [29:14]
C
Okay, yeah, let's get into this for sure. So the first thing I want to point out, and I'm sure you will agree with this, is what we consider fat in this country is absurd. I mean, you see the pictures of Jessica Simpson, the pictures of celebrities, who was it most recently that was basically body shamed for having gained like 25 pounds. Yeah, that is ridiculous. And.
- [29:43]
B
Well, that's kind of a. That's true. I agree with that. But that's a straw man. Yes. We could take the dumbest and worst attitudes of the worst people and say that's what our society thinks. Yeah, I think that you'd have to say what our society thinks is the fact that the majority of people are overweight. This seems to me to be in some exam, some evidence of an acceptance of fat people in that most of us are fat.
- [30:09]
C
Okay, so next let's talk about what causes people to be fat. Right. Because I don't think anyone's denying that the country is getting fatter. There's plenty of evidence on that. Yeah. So you see someone walking down the street, you're like, that person is a fat person. Is it because they're not eating a balanced diet, they're not exercising? Yeah, maybe. Definitely. That certainly is a case for some people. And if you are fat because of poor habits, you probably are not going to measure healthy by many metrics. And I don't think anyone disputes that. However, there are plenty of fat people who are very healthy. A lot of people gain weight after disordered eating or chronic dieting because your metabolism is basically thrown into chaos when that happens. And that has nothing to do with your eating habits. People gain weight. Postpartum women gain weight when they're on the birth control pill. There are medications, there's stress, there's aging. People naturally gain weight as they age. There's injury. So you don't know when you're looking at someone what is the cause of their fatness and therefore what their health metrics look like. And on the flip side, when you see somebody who's thin, it's easy to assume, oh, they're eating well, they're exercising again. Yeah, that's the case for some people. But I know a lot of thin people who don't exercise at all. I know a lot of teenage boys who eat KFC every night and they're as thin as a pole. And I don't think we would consider those people healthy just because they're thin. And when we're talking about weight loss and intentional weight loss, there are a lot of extremely unhealthy habits that lead to weight loss. Right? Smoking, drug addiction, eating disorders, malnourishment, starvation, even things like diabetes and cancer. Those can cause significant weight loss. So again, it's not that people are saying there are no health risks associated with being in a bigger body.
- [32:14]
B
People are saying that. I mean, I've had people on that's not my best selling authors have said that. No, I know.
- [32:21]
C
And I think that, I think why people are saying that is because we. More what the podcast is about and what the fat acceptance movement is about is debunking myths and exaggerations about fat people. So obesity isn't a guaranteed death trap. You know, we, and we focus on debunking this because health is weaponized against fat people to justify stigma and discrimination. So that's why the fat acceptance movement is so hell bent on talking about that kind of stuff. And another piece of that is people will often say, oh, I just care about your health. I want fat people to get skinny for their health. There's again, many, many metrics of health. You're not going to the beach and yelling at people for laying out in the sun. You're not posting pictures of them online with rude comments because you think they're going to get skin cancer. You're not going to the Boston Marathon and heckling people because they're going to need knee replacements in three years. You're only doing this to fat people. And so that's a big part of the problem. And that's why there's so much pushback in that community against these ideas around health.
- [33:40]
B
Right. So a couple of things. You laid out a lot of exceptions to the rule, and I'll, I'll stipulate there are a lot of exceptions, but they are exceptions there. And then there is the rule. True, people with cancer lose weight and some thin people just are genetically thin. But just like, and also, you know, not obesity isn't a guarantee of death. Smoking a pack a day isn't a guarantee of lung cancer. But I'm talking about General correlations. That's just a point. That is not the main point, which why I brought it up with you to understand and believe in simple principles like we got our weight loss science wrong for many, many years and there is no benefit to cruelty and there is no justification for assumptions not based on fact. That's all true, but the fat acceptance movement often goes much further and says things like, and this was in the podcast, there is no healthy way to diet. I guess it depends on what the word diet is to do. You have to accept most of all of the tenets of the fat acceptance movement. These experts you put on the show in order to get a lot of, a lot out of the camp shame podcast. Can you say, look, I think they did it wrong and I think it was crazy for bunch of years. I think our entire society is implicated. I think the guy who ran it was horrible. And yet at the same time, I think that there is a benefit to not being extremely overweight. And I understand why people would want a way out of that lifestyle.
- [35:16]
C
So the big problem is that diets don't work. So the fact that these are being prescribed to people who are in large bodies, it doesn't make any sense. There was a 2015 study of about 278,000 people and they lost weight within five years. Between 95 and 98% of those people gained their weight back and often much more. We also have this concept known as weight cycling or yo yo dieting, which is proven to actually be dangerous. It increases your risk of diabetes, liver disease, sleep apnea, and it also increases your risk of heart failure by something like 50%. So people who are chronically going on and off of diets, that's not healthy for your body. And the biggest issue is probably the mental piece of it. So eating disorders are very common. They're fatal. They can be fatal. And even when they're not fatal, they're all consuming and they ruin lives. I mean, I have yet to meet a fat person who has not tried losing weight every. If, if diets worked, everybody would be thin by now. That's the bottom line.
- [36:26]
B
Well, what do you mean by worked? I mean, obviously they work for some people. There are some people who were overweight. And now for 2% of people, no, it's not 2%.
- [36:37]
C
It is long term.
- [36:38]
B
It's not.
- [36:39]
C
It's between 5 and 2 and 5% of people.
- [36:42]
B
When you include gaining some of the weight back as a failure, I don't think the people would define it that way.
- [36:48]
C
No, my statistic Was within five years, the number of people who regained all of their lost weight was between 95 and 98%. And the people who do keep their weight off, it takes a tremendous amount of time, effort, mental energy, money. You have to be very strategic, very planned. It really becomes an all consuming thing.
- [37:11]
B
So a meta analysis of 29 long term weight loss studies show that within two years 50% of the weight is typically regained. And within five years more than 80% of the weight loss is regained. Harvard says that one in five individuals sustained long term weight loss. That works for 20% of the people. And then the next time they try it, it could work for 20% of the people. And then if we have GLP ones which are, I think decried on your show a little bit or used as an example of our societal, our societies odd obsession with weight, when you add all that, they'll probably be more, they'll definitely be more successful weight loss. And if we could get rid of the discrimination and the assumptions and the ignorance, but pair it with actual healthy weight loss, which is possible, that's a better situation than we're in now. Now, if you think it's impossible, you'll reject the premise. But I'm telling you that not one study, but these meta studies show that it is possible. Hard but possible.
- [38:19]
C
So to talk about GLP1s, certainly the biggest problem with GLP1s is the cultural element of it where people now feel more pressure than ever to lose weight. And of course GLP1s have some side effects. They're expensive, many people can't access them. It's also a drug that you need to be on for, for life. So most people, their beef with the GLP1s is just, wow, great. Now there's this added pressure to lose weight and now the discrimination against my body is going to be that much higher. I think what GLP1s do well is they prove that fat people were right all along. It's not that they're lazy, it's not that, you know, all you have to do is diet. What GLP1s prove is that there's something else going on and it's not just a matter of willpower.
- [39:09]
B
Yeah, willpower is a pretty inaccurate concept. But that first part, that first part that you said is that GLP1s are more harm than good and not because of the money, because you have to be able to.
- [39:22]
C
I didn't say that, actually. No, I said the problem with GL, the biggest problem with GLP1s is the culture that they've created and the stigma that they've driven up the stave.
- [39:33]
B
Wait, how have they driven up a stigma? They've addressed a problem, obesity.
- [39:37]
C
I did just say this because now there's more pressure on fat people than ever to lose weight. Because now if you see a fat person walking down the street, people feel emboldened to say, hey, you're fat. Go on a GLP1.
- [39:51]
B
Yeah. But for the vast, vast, vast majority of people who use them or want to use them but can't afford them, which is, I think, the bigger problem, this is something from a miracle to a really helpful tool. I mean, it's like saying, well, for
- [40:05]
C
people, I don't know, floss.
- [40:06]
B
Floss just encourages people to discriminate against those with rotten teeth. It's a tool, you know, it's a pretty miraculous tool, I would say very different.
- [40:17]
C
A couple of studies that I do want to point you to because I know that you very strongly believe that fat equates to being unhealthy. Right?
- [40:27]
B
I do not. Nope. I believe that, first of all, morbid obesity very much correlates with unhealth, and fat is a nebulous term. But obesity has clear correlations to things like diabetes and bad heart outcomes and poorer health. And also people would like not to be obese. How about what people want in human flourishing, Right?
- [40:49]
C
What they want because of the way that the world treats them. But let's talk about the diabetes.
- [40:54]
B
Because people have agency or they feel healthier or don't pant and sweat while walking up the stairs. These are all legitimate concerns.
- [41:02]
C
So let's talk about the morbid obesity factor. And again, when I use the terms fat or obese or morbid obesity, I'm referring to the BMI distinctions, which we talk in the podcast about how BMI is like a load of crap. And I think we can all agree with that.
- [41:17]
B
Quite imperfect, yes, at certain points.
- [41:19]
C
So there was a study done maybe five years ago with sumo wrestlers. Have you heard about this?
- [41:25]
B
Yeah.
- [41:26]
C
So we all know sumo wrestlers. I think you have to be a minimum of £400. So these are 400, 500, 600 pound dudes. They took to. They took this group of sumo wrestlers, some researchers, they tested all of their vitals, they did blood work and then they did CT scans over their bodies. What they found in these sumo wrestlers was that all of their vitals came back plenty healthy, as healthy as their thin counterparts. There wasn't the hypertension or the cardio issues or the glucose problems that the researchers expected to see. And then when they looked at the scans of these sumo wrestlers bodies, they saw that all of their fat was stored subcutaneously, meaning right below the surface of their skin. It wasn't anywhere near their organs. They took another group of sumo wrestlers who were either retired or were out of training. They weren't very active. They found that their fat deposits had migrated and become visceral fat, which means the fat that's packed around your organs and that is the type of fat that's associated with hypertension, diabetes, all of those negative health outcomes. So you were saying people don't want to be obese, they don't want to be sweaty, they don't want to be panting. I don't know a lot of people who can push a sick 600 pound dude out of a ring other than sumo wrestlers. And by all metrics this group of sumo wrestlers was perfectly healthy. So it really depends on. This is clearly the.
- [42:54]
B
Except this is clearly like the cancer patient lost weight. The exception rather than.
- [43:00]
C
It's not an exception. What it shows us most people aren't sumo wrestlers is a merit of sure body fat and your eating. What it shows is it's more about your habits and than your body size, period. So again, by looking at a sumo
- [43:15]
B
wrestler, 90 something percent high, 90% of
- [43:18]
C
people won't be offensive lineman, unhealthy sumo wrestler. When you look at the other thing
- [43:22]
B
is sumo wrestlers die 20 years before the average of the Japanese.
- [43:27]
C
Well, probably because they retire and they stop being active and then they get those visceral fat deposits.
- [43:32]
B
Yeah, the vast, vast, vast majority of people who are in the weight category of sumo wrestlers or offensive linemen, which I'm more familiar with, and have very high BMIs, but also a lot of muscle and run a lot and have good cardiovascular health. The vast, vast, vast majority of people aren't like that. So to.
- [43:54]
C
Right. But plenty of fat people are active. I mean that's another thing that you just don't know by looking at somebody how active they are. It's been proven over and over again that exercise does not reduce body size. And so somebody could be very fit, very active. I also, I used to be a trainer. I was a bar trainer. And I can tell you that women would come in all shapes and sizes. And just because you're skinny doesn't mean you have good endurance, doesn't mean you're more flexible than anybody else. It doesn't mean you have better stamina. So I think you just have to be much more nuanced when you're talking about weight.
- [44:30]
B
So my premise was that if you could take away the ignorance and the discrimination and where the science has moved on from, but if you can embrace the idea that obesity is a problem for our society, it's making many, many people less healthy than they otherwise would be and enjoy their life less, that is the future I would choose. Whereas your future, I'm not putting words in your mouth. Emphasizes more of accepting a fat body, not having to change a fat body than what I just articulated. I'm just wondering if this is.
- [45:12]
C
Yeah, I agree with that.
- [45:13]
B
Okay. Why do you think that is important rhetorically to emphasize?
- [45:20]
C
I think it's important because why do you care if somebody is fat? Again, it doesn't mean for the same
- [45:27]
B
reason that I care about the American lifespan and drunk driving and opioid use and everything that's making us die earlier than the French, Germans and every other advanced country like we have, we are unhealthy as a country.
- [45:41]
C
Again, people are not. People in the, in the overweight BMI category have the lowest morbidity rates of anyone. That includes the obese category. That includes the normal weight category. That includes the underweight category. A lot of this health stuff, like I've been saying, is very misunderstood and exaggerated. If you are a fat. So there's a bell curve, right? We got our real skinny people, we got our real, real heavy people. To your point, most people are in the middle. Most people are not on my 600 pound life. And if they are on my 600 pound life, there's something else going on there. And diet and exercising and body shaming is not the solution for those people.
- [46:22]
B
I don't think body shaming is the solution, but I think exercising is good and dieting is great. Diet. I don't know about dieting. Diet's really important.
- [46:32]
C
Yeah.
- [46:33]
B
So do you think that there would be a way to create a Camp Shane that worked, that was healthy, that was explicitly for the overweight, but taught good eating habits, actually had the psychiatrists on staff and emphasize that you could be happy and have a girlfriend and swim without your shirt? Is that possible?
- [46:57]
C
That is a question I've been asking myself this entire process and it's hard to say because there were so many beautiful things about Camp Shane. There was the camaraderie, there was the inclusivity. There was, like I said, it's a space where kids felt safe to try new sports, new types of activity that they were maybe too intimidated to try in the outside world. You know, with the right therapists, with the right nutritionist where you can learn practical tips, you know, about stabilizing your blood sugar, about getting enough fiber, Those kinds of things are so important. But anytime that there is a scale or a weight loss goal, I don't think in the society that we're in, you could do so ethically, especially with kids.
- [47:47]
B
But does the idea of the question you've been asking yourself, can there be a very functional camp Shane, does that butt up against the ideology of Tigris and some of the other experts you spoke to?
- [48:01]
C
Yeah, like I said, I think it would be really hard to do because anytime there's intentional weight loss, that's going to cause problems. So do I think a fat camp can exist and be ethical? No. Do I think there's a way possibly to have a camp where again, kids can go, they can learn about nutrition, they can learn about movement, there's some psychological assistance there and you know, that will benefit people's health whether or not they lose weight? Yes, I think that's possible.
- [48:35]
B
Yeah. And I also think that in 2025, marketing it as another way would not fly.
- [48:41]
C
That's probably also true. Although I would prefer people market things accurately.
- [48:45]
B
Yes. Kelsey Snelling is the host of the podcast. All episodes are out now. The podcast is about a camp called Shane. The podcast name is Camp Shame. Kelsey, thanks for bandying all of this about with me.
- [49:01]
C
Yeah, thank you so much.
- [49:02]
B
Thank you. And that's it for today's show. I do want to ask you, my listener, you know, early on in the front of the show where I said H2O hype too often, honestly, did you cringe or did you delight? Did you say, ooh, that's good or oh, that's so bad, I'm just, just wondering right to the gist@mike pesca.com who is the gist? Well, Cory Wara produces it and Michelle Pesca oversees all of it. Who else did she oversee? She's over oversees Leo Baum. He's a very, very hard working kid. She oversees Astra Green. She's in charge of the socials. She oversees Ashley Kahn, who's our production coordinator. She oversees Philip Swissgood lightly. He consults and she helps oversee also in a light way, with a light touch, I think the right touch. With Kathleen Sykes who helps with the Pesca profundity substack and the gist list. We have a new Pesca profundities up today about Laura Loomer. Check that out at mikepesca substack. Com Anun Peru Duparu G Peru. Thanks for listening.