Camp Shane is under new leadership: Selma’s son, David Ettenberg. In the 1990s, David’s reign brings with it more campers, more money, and even a Disney movie inspired by the camp itself. But as diet culture and fat phobia grip the decade, life at Shane gets stricter, stranger, and more dangerous. Selma struggles to hand over control, a disastrous Heavyweights screening becomes legend, and cracks in the camp’s foundation begin to show.

References:

The Epic Family Feud Behind an Iconic American Weight-Loss Camp for Kids
The term ‘heroin chic’ needs to die – even if skinny-worship rages on
An Epidemic of Beauty Sickness by Renee Engeln at TEDxUConn 2013 (Full Transcript)
Is BMI Accurate? New Evidence Says No
U.S. Weight Loss Market Size/Share Worth USD 305.30 Billion by 2030 at a 9.7% CAGR: Custom Market Insights (Analysis, Outlook, Leaders, Report, Trends, Forecast, Segmentation, Growth, Growth Rate, Value)
That diet probably won’t work long-term — here’s what to focus on instead

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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Camp Shame

Episode 8: Losing Isn't Everything

Thursday, July 10, 2025

Episode 7: Nobody Believes the Fat Kid

Thursday, July 3, 2025

Episode 6: When the Sh*t Hits the Fan

Thursday, June 26, 2025

Episode 5: Live, Laugh, Lose

Thursday, June 19, 2025

Episode 4: As Big as it Gets

Thursday, June 12, 2025

Episode 3: The Real Heavyweights

Thursday, June 5, 2025

Episode 2: A Fat Girl's Vision

Thursday, June 5, 2025

Episode 1: Welcome to Camp Shane

Thursday, June 5, 2025

Introducing: Camp Shame

Tuesday, April 15, 2025