Overweight children can get in shape by spending part of their summer at a weight-loss camp, if the experience of one such program is any indication.

UK researchers found that children who attended the northern England camp for about a month lost an average of 13 pounds, improved their fitness level and sports skill, and in general felt better about themselves.

With so little known about what works for childhood weight loss, the new findings offer some evidence that weight-loss camps can indeed work, according to the study authors.

They caution, however, that the success of one program does not mean that others will be effective.

“There is definitely variance in the quality” of different programs, said Dr. Paul J. Gately of Leeds Metropolitan University, the study’s lead author.

The program in this study, Gately told Reuters Health, was carefully developed over seven years and employed a “truly holistic” approach that integrated diet, exercise and lifestyle changes.

Still, he said, the results point to the potential for weight-loss camps to work.

The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, followed 185 overweight and obese children who attended the weight-loss camp at some point between 1999 and 2002. They each spent about a month, on average, in the program.

Gately and his colleagues compared the children with a group of normal-weight and overweight kids who went about their usual summertime routines.

Campers spent their days playing sports, swimming, canoeing and taking part in other structured activities meant to boost their fitness and help them enjoy being active. The children’s calorie intake was moderately limited, and they had classes on how to make healthy food choices, keep up lifestyle changes and deal with bullying.

Overall, the researchers found, children at the camp shed an average of 13 pounds and reduced their body mass index (BMI)- a measure of weight in relation to height - mainly through losing body fat. In contrast, overweight and normal-weight children in the comparison group tended to gain body fat.

Treadmill exercise tests showed that the campers’ aerobic fitness and blood pressure had improved by the end of the program, as had their skills in sports like basketball and soccer. The children also showed gains in self-esteem, as measured by questionnaires.

According to the researchers, the camp environment may have allowed the children to overcome body-related or social barriers that may have kept them from being active.

“Overall,” they write, “providing a controlled but safe, enjoyable and social environment is a likely a major contributor” to the changes in weight, fitness and self-esteem the children showed.

SOURCE: Pediatrics, July 2005.