So I went to Camp Shane when I was a kid. I’m sorry but it was a great experience. There was mental health as well as diet and exercise. I made incredible friends. I was ages 12-16 when I went. I went back as a counselor briefly when I was 19. Yeah it was just a great experience. I’m not sure why they are trying to demonize it.

I fell upon this podcast by accident and was absolutely astonished that this wasn’t a “tale of old” but set to present day. It showed me how much of an echo chamber I’ve been living in since I thought “fat camps” were shamed out of existence decades ago. Well done on shining light on this abhorrent practice that I didn’t even realize it was still a thing.

I think Kelsey Snelling did a great job telling the story and getting different perspectives.

I am enjoying the content and the alternative perspective to our typical societal norms around health and weight. However, it’s disheartening that this would include an advertisement for a GLP-1 for weight loss. Each episode starts with a trigger warning for the conversation of body image and weight, and then to turnaround and advertise weight loss is jarring and disappointing

Wow, the number of poor ratings on here by self-appointed “health experts” tell you all you need to know about how this camp, which literally gave kids eating disorders, allowed for sexual and physical abuse to take place, and created (at the end of its existence) extremely unsafe environments (which included an 8yo girl getting her face bashed in by faulty equipment). The story is really about how greed (the original owners son) and our societal pressure to be thin at all costs came together to create a poisonous soup where real people were really hurt. But I guess a bunch of folks don’t like the idea that fat children don’t deserve to suffer? Ugh. If you’re on the fence about the morality of not shaming fat people for existing, give it a listen all the way through and hopefully you’ll come out on the other side with your humanity reinforced.

Heavily biased on weight and health. Fair fat advocacy but spoiled by false claims. Entertaining at some level. Got me triggered by outrageous “weigh doesn’t matter and society hates fat people” narratives

Loved this one! So informative and great storytelling. Was recommended to listen and as someone in recovery from food, I found this one so good!

Kept waiting for this one to “get good.” It didn’t happen. This is an 8 episode gripe session from disgruntled former employees. Would I agree with everything the camp did? Definitely not. But the things going on at the camp are really no more dangerous than the ideas being touted by the host, her sister, and 3 other counselors who think that obesity has no bearing on health. In the name of virtue signaling they swing to an equally dangerous extreme of allowing someone to believe they are perfectly healthy when in reality they aren’t. Several of the campers that are interviewed actually speak about how much they loved the camp. How is it that the campers walked away (mostly) unscathed, but the counselors are the ones with trauma? Doesn’t make sense.

I got bored. Sad stories of children forced to be thinner but the rest we so boring and.l not well told. Waaaaaay too long

Yes let’s all just pretend it’s ok to be morbidly obese. It’s not like there are serious health consequences or anything… Seriously though, you wouldn’t watch someone drink themselves to death and say “let’s not alcohol shame” or “let’s not meth shame now”. Why should unhealthy food addiction and lack of movement be any different?

It was entertaining to listen to for the same reasons you’d listen to Dateline or watch Teen Mom. The “fat activism” was laughable but tolerable just to hear the story. A bunch of fat Jewish kids getting sent to fat camp? Come on somebody make a comedy series on Netflix about this already. I’ll watch it.

This podcast was helpful in exploring the long term and harmful effects of fat shaming in our culture, I can’t believe this kind of camp was allowed to go on for so long. These kids were failed so many times.

I love this show. It is inclusive, body positive and eye opening. I hope there will be more! Either way it is a great listen. Highly recommend.

The number of times this podcast speaks opinion as though it’s fact is very depressing. They are doing an extreme disservice to the conversation surrounding weight and health. Yes, let’s talk about how unhealthy fat camps were. But let’s leave out the lies that say being overweight doesn’t negatively affect your health. Come on guys. Be better.

Very repetitive. It needed some editing. It should have been 2 or 3 episodes.

Well narrated, written, and overall structured. It’s nice to take a break from gore and murder with an equally important topic. I also enjoyed the humor and the narrator’s candor about her proximity to the subject.

Starts ok but turns very liberal telling people how they should feel and think

I went to a fat camp. It was actually great. If you’re m honest, I would have traded just about anything to be fit as a young adult. Being fat changes your experience as a young person. I missed out on a lot of core experiences. This podcast wants you to believe that difference doesn’t exist. But it does. No one wants to be fat. They just don’t.

Not just about a dysfunctional camp but our whole dysfunctional approach to dieting and weight. Well done.

It’s imporTant, not imporint. It drives my nuts why people want to sound so unintelligent. At least the vocal fry is at a minimum.

Fat shaming has to stop! This podcast is an excellent example of how the skinny culture is just a business! Nice job.

Way too many studies out there to debate that obesity leads to disease and death. They preach that all weights can be healthy. Then they bring in a “weight inclusive” doctor, which alone tells you they are more concerned with feelings than health. Just too many lies to be good.

This podcast is the exactly the plot of my favorite childhood movie “Heavyweights” and I’m here for it!!

In 2013 I was the director of art and crafts at Camp Shane. To make a long and complex story short, I was extremely overwhelmed by ethical concerns surrounding the safety of children in this environment—and I was outspoken about my horror. This podcast was healing because it articulated my experience with such detail and sensitivity, and echoed my perspective regarding the toxicity. To reviewers skeptical of this podcast and claim it is biased, I staunchly disagree. I was there, I lived it, NOTHING in this podcast was exaggerated. The journalism was fact based; sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. What occurred is hard to believe, perhaps incomprehensible. The atrocities were mostly unseen, the camp was insular by design. This podcast serves as an invaluable gift to those of us that lived it and were there. Healing from trauma starts with telling our narrative honestly, it being seen and understood for what it is. These testimonies offer unity and validation for a very real, shared experience.

I ALMOST didn’t listen because I just glanced at the 3.7 stars. But then I read the reviews and saw it was just people getting really upset that they were reporting that weight is not a good indicator of health. Which it is not. Actual researchers and scientists can back this claim. But people seem to get really offended that fat ppl would just like to be treated like ppl. Anyway- I wanted to write this to counteract at least one ignorant one star review :)

I like this podcast. It’s interesting. But it tries at points, way too hard to create controversy where there really isn’t any.

The fatphobic reviews are the reason the camp existed. Health CAN exist at every size. It can also NOT exist at every size. Weight alone is not a determinant of health. That is a fact.

Remember what you heard in this podcast when your metabolism ages with you. It will happen; it’s biology. As a former camper who had blocked a lot of these memories due to trauma, I appreciate the work this podcast did to expose everyone. There are thousands of us who attribute our issues with food and exercise to this horrible camp, and listening to this helped me process exactly what happened. Thank you, Camp Shame.

This podcast really helped me make sense of my 3 summer experience at the ferndale location of Camp Shane. Everything they talked about in the show made complete sense and matched my experience, and it helped to contextualize things I suspected but didn’t totally understand as a young camper. I really really appreciate all of the time and research the team put into this incredible podcast. It meant a lot to me and helped me process and grieve that chapter in my life. Thank you so much for caring. I studied documentary filmmaking in undergrad, and I feel that the team did a great job with researching, piecing together a story, and editing. It’s clear they interviewed so many people and the story is spot on. I definitely recommend listening and will be sharing this with my spouse so he can better understand that chapter in my life.

First half of the show was great. The last few episodes were terrible. I didn’t think they could have found anymore histrionic and biased people to interview for the last few episodes to shape their narrative. It didn’t need that.

Not nearly as dramatic as you might think for such a long podcast series. I kept waiting for it to get interesting. Never really happened.

I’m so glad I listened to this podcast! I really loved hearing the perspectives of everyone and I think it gave me a good understanding of the abuse that took place there in so many forms to so many people for so many years… Thank you for sharing this story with us!

Interesting podcast and more so interesting how many people are vehemently defending diet culture by leaving low reviews. Yikes

Ugh. I was so excited for this podcast because as a kid, we played Camp Shane in inter camp sports games. Embarrassingly, we were cruel as healthy weight, active, athletic kids who won every game. Looking back, we should have done a lot differently. I was hoping for a non biased documentary on this camp. Unfortunately, this is a jaded, angry, one sided viewpoint with no balance. She seems to be out to disparage the owners. She’s even arguing that being overweight is not an issue. Ma’am, the number of children on Metformin in 2025 is a massive issue. I am turning it off after episode 3. It’s awful.

WHY do podcasters do this voice- it’s so obnoxious- why are you talking like that?! Over the top- can barely focus on the story

There’s a fascinating story here, but it’s stretched (sometimes very thinly) to discuss a lot of unproven theories about weight, health, and culture. The narrator’s shocked voice announces that of course we all know there’s no relationship between weight and health, and then brings on a single medical provider to endorse this controversial opinion. This interesting story about the evolution and decline of a weight loss camp for kids is burdened with theories about race, slavery, and other hot button topics. It’d be better off without them.

I was optimistic and entertained for the first two episodes, but after that I soon realized that the podcast was going to be based on misinformation and “gotchya” moments against the camp that are actually just day-to-day struggles that many schools and camps face. It seemed like they so badly wanted Camp Shane to seem like this terrible, evil place, but their “evidence” fell flat. And the misinformation I’m referring to is when they have a doctor on that says weight should have no place in health care, except for medication dosage calculation. This is just flat-out, dangerous misinformation. There are many peer-reviewed, high-quality studies showing the ill-effects of carrying extra weight. That doesn’t mean we should be fat-phobic. But you also can’t ignore the science.

Seemed interesting at first. Probably was a lot of abuse going on, but lost me when they were actually saying being fat is healthy!!! LOL.

Loved this podcast. The narrator did a great job speaking. Heartbreaking to hear what these kids went through at this camp. Was a great listen.

Ya lost me at “being overweight is not a health issue.” Not only is there a clear bias AND inaccurate conclusions, but the arguments themselves are very poor; it doesn’t actually tackle the strongest arguments for obesity being a health issue and simply waves them away with shallow appeals to authority and emotion….which in turn insults the audience’s intelligence as the show expects us to just accept what we’re told about weight without actually making a compelling case. Obese people die earlier. That’s a fact. In fact, many of today’s fat acceptance influencers ARE starting to die off before they see retirement. Pursuing a healthy weight isn’t shameful and encouraging others to do the same shouldn’t involve shame or extreme measures. It shouldn’t be hard to both treat everyone at any weight with respect AND want them to live a full life by getting to a healthy weight.

While I do believe being obese does have major health issues the stigma around overweight kids and adults is sickening and I believe that this podcast does a great job of showcasing the way overweight adolescents feel surrounding weight and sheds light on the horrible experience that took place at Camp Shane. Super interesting podcast!

The first couple episodes had me intrigued, but as they want on it felt really repetitive and I lost interest.

Fascinating and well told.

I thought this was an interesting podcast and very well done. Many reviews here show that there is so much misinformation still out there about eating disorders, disordered eating and diet culture. Eating disorders are extremely complex illnesses and far more common than we know. What often starts in adolescence doesn't go away with adulthood. So glad this camp is done!

There’s an episode that deals with the cringey camp custom of color wars. the music in the background is fake-native. The narration apologizes (half-heartedly) for not being “politically correct.” I think the word you want is RACIST.

This podcast was so well done. Well researched and well told. I cried at some parts because it really paints the picture of what the camp did and also how our society has harmed our kids. Highly recommend to grow all of our understanding of anti fat bias and fatphobia and what we as individuals can actually do about it.

Really interesting retelling and shocking information.

I do think the story is interesting and as someone I who grew up in the 90s/2000s and completely agree the focus on weight was sickening and had large term effects, the doctor and activists saying weight has no impact on health is just as crazy as the antivaxers. I think the reporting lost credibility after I heard them speak.

This is one of the best podcasts I’ve ever listened to. I have a feeling I will be ruminating over it for years to come. It’s very transporting and enlightening, I highly recommend.

Incorrect medical information on obesity and way too many ads