Health Archives - A Thousand Summers

Camp: More Than Just Fun & Games

Camp is about fun, friends, and activities, but it also is a fantastic opportunity for social-emotional growth. Many years ago, Frank Cheley, the founder of Cheley Colorado Camps, coined the term FunPlus® to describe the camp experience, representing the fun that defines camp plus all its other benefits. Kids often go to camp and just focus on the fun they’re having, not even realizing how much they are learning and growing—the “plus” sneaks up on them and becomes more evident the longer they go to camp.

At A Thousand Summers we frequently show the “plus” through camper and parent testimonials about how camp has helped build independence, self-confidence, leadership, teamwork, and resilience. We support campers for their “life-span” of camp, meaning that most of the kids we serve attend camp for multiple summers. As a result of that multi-year experience, the personal growth they experience deepens and becomes more meaningful with each year. The “plus” keeps adding up as each summer goes by.

We love hearing about that personal growth, but did you know that going to summer camp also has physical health benefits? The January/February 2025 issue of Camping Magazine published by the American Camp Association presents some excellent information on this topic.

To summarize, the article “Spending Time Outdoors May Help Prevent Nearsightedness” (page 6) discusses the fast-growing world-wide myopia epidemic. Increased screen time and decreased outdoor activity, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, have dramatically affected vision. As people are spending more time indoors and under or in front of artificial light, they are not getting the benefits of deep violet light that is found in the UV-A rays of the sun. Exposure to that deep violet light can help prevent myopia.

Experts recommend decreasing screen time and spending more time outside to help prevent nearsightedness from developing, which is especially important in children. Sounds like a prescription for camp!

Another article titled “Exposure to Air Pollution Negatively Affects Children’s Brains” (pages 8-9) details new research that shows a link between exposure to air pollution and developmental changes in the brains of adolescents. The American Lung Association’s 2024 State of the Air report showed that 39% of Americans live in a place with unhealthy air quality. We know that poor air quality can lead to many serious health issues like lung conditions, heart disease, and cancer to name a few. But now studies are showing that kids are especially vulnerable to the harmful effects of air pollution because their brains and bodies are still growing and developing.

Exposure to air pollution decreases the body’s ability to process information that is collected by connecting the regions that send and receive signals. This weaker connection can negatively impact an adolescent’s ability to problem-solve, focus, and learn.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) suggests using air cleaners to improve indoor air quality and increasing fresh air ventilation by opening doors and windows whenever possible. Spending 4 weeks in the outdoors away from urban areas and the air pollution that surrounds them would definitely help! Again, camp sounds like a great solution!

When kids are at camp for even just 4 weeks in the summer, they get a critical break from screens, technology, and social media as well as the air pollution that many of them breathe daily. That 4-week break represents nearly 8% of the year. Though it could be argued that 8% is not enough, it is an important start in helping to prevent nearsightedness as well as protecting the still-developing adolescent brain.

Perhaps more than anything, 4 weeks at camp hopefully sets some behavioral patterns so that young people will be more aware of their screen time when they return home, will choose to spend more time outside in the sunshine and fresh air, and will encourage their friends and family to join them. Doing so will benefit both their physical and their mental health.

Though Frank Cheley may not have imagined the scope of the challenges today’s young people face, he definitely understood the critical importance of spending time outside and how that positively impacts youth development. The fun of camp has always been and still is contagious, but in today’s world, the “plus” in FunPlus® has deeper meaning and even greater significance.

To read these and other articles in the January/February issue of Camping Magazine, click here.

Homesick and Happy

If you have children going to camp for the first time (or if you were ever a first-time camper yourself), you know that homesickness is very real. Dr. Michael Thompson, a school psychologist, speaker, and former board member of the American Camp Association, writes about homesickness in his book called Homesick and Happy: How Time Away from Parents Can Help a Child Grow.

Though being away from home for several weeks at a time can be challenging, especially the first time around, Michael Thompson explains how critical it is in the development of young people. Homesickness is a very natural part of being away from home. Though the first few letters home may be tear-stained and sound dismal and parents may want to jump in the car and go pick up their child, experiencing homesickness teaches a camper how to persevere through adversity, as well as how to ask others for help and support if they need it.

“If a child goes away from his or her parents, encounters new people and new challenges, learns the moral rules of a new community, absorbs the traditions, makes some choices and faces some challenges and discovers something about him or herself, that’s camp… in that process you learn something new about yourself that you could never have learned if you had stayed at home with your mom and dad. And because they weren’t there, your achievement belongs to you, your new independent self.“

Real growth happens when kids are away from home and the preconceived notions of who they are, what they should like, and how they should act. At camp, kids are free to determine their own passions, make their own decisions, and take responsibility for their own actions. They must learn to solve their own problems and resolve their own conflicts, including overcoming homesickness. Doing so prepares young people for that inevitable time in the future when they move on to college or the workforce. Those young adults who have spent time away from home at camp have a much easier time making the transition into this more independent phase. The rites of passage that come with spending summers at camp translate into a bright adulthood.

Camp Offers Significant Physical Activity To Campers

The reduction in the amount of daily activity children are exposed to is commonly reported. Recess is under threat in schools, parents are less inclined to allow their children to roam outside and play, and the pervasive impact of technology on the active lives of our youth is generating real concern. Exercise is important and the benefits are widely understood.

Exercise is an important part of keeping children healthy. Encouraging healthy lifestyles in children and adolescents is important for when they grow older. Lifestyles that are learned in childhood are more likely to stay with the child into adulthood. Some changes in lifestyle can be harder to make the older the person becomes.

The following are just some of the benefits that regular exercise or physical activity provides:

Improves blood circulation throughout the body
Keeps weight under control
Improves blood cholesterol levels
Prevents and manages high blood pressure
Prevents bone loss
Boosts energy level
Releases tension
Improves the ability to fall asleep quickly and sleep well
Improves self-image
Helps manage stress
Counters anxiety and depression
Increases enthusiasm and optimism
Increases muscle strength

One of these benefits has been outlined in a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM) – exercise may play a key role in helping children cope with stressful situations. The findings suggest physical activity plays a role in mental health by buffering children from the effects of daily stressors.

What Role Does Camp Play in Providing Daily Exercise for Children?

Kids at day camp are getting more than the recommended amount of physical activity each day, according to a new study, “Children’s Moderate to Vigorous Physical Activity Attending Summer Day Camps,” published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine. Seven professors from various universities in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Arizona studied more than 1,000 campers at summer day camps in the Southeast where enrollment was equal to, or greater than, 50 campers.

The study asserts that, outside of regular school, summer day camps are the largest setting where kids can be physically active. According to the results, more than 70% of boys and girls at day camps (aged 5-12) are getting over the recommended amount of 60 minutes per day of vigorous physical activity. Project those findings into the residential summer camp environment and imagine what type of results would be seen. Clearly, the majority of young people who attend summer camp are experiencing vigorous amounts of physical activity each day. Those of us who attended camp, or have provided the opportunity to children or grandchildren have known this to be true for many years – this study provides the empirical evidence that allows those not familiar with the benefits of camp to begin to understand some of the physical benefits also.

The authors of this study conclude by calling on public health practitioners to focus efforts on making camps accessible for kids throughout the U.S., and the John Austin Cheley Foundation could not agree more.