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B’nai B’rith Camp promotes healthy body image for adolescent girls

Contact: Michelle Koplan, executive director, B’nai B’rith Camp, (503) 452-3444, mkoplan@bbcamp.org

B B Camp girls: Eat healthy and feel great about yourself
Camp announces new program for its young-teen campers

My thighs are too big. My belly is too round. My curves aren’t in the right places.

Many adolescent girls silently harbor thoughts like these – or flat out express them aloud. At their extreme, these thoughts become beliefs, and girls risk descending the slippery slope of poor body image and low self-esteem into the murky world of eating disorders.

B’nai B’rith Camp this summer won a grant to pilot a program whose mission is to eject girls’ tapes of self-hating commentary and insert new ones of confidence and pride in self. B B Camp is one of only four Jewish overnight camps nationwide to win this grant.

“Gan Nashim: Growing Strong Jewish Girls” is a new program of Hazon, a non-profit whose mission is to create healthy and sustainable communities in the Jewish world and outside it.

Gan Nashim is a camp-based wellness program that aims to strengthen girls’ body image and self-esteem via a deeper connection to Jewish values, rituals and practices. Hazon is collaborating with Hadassah on Gan Nashim’s curriculum.

The program focuses on healthy eating and includes educational hands-on activities and exercises the girls ultimately will bring home from B B Camp to lean on and implement, now and throughout their lives.

“By embarking on the Gan Nashim program as a group, the girls will create community around food and Judaism,” according to a program description by Judith Belasco, Hazon’s director of food programs, and her colleagues.

They write, “During camp, girls spend more time outdoors and in physical proximity to each other, as girls eat, sleep and play, for weeks and months. The setting provides an opportunity to create a positive, supportive community instead of an environment in which girls compare bodies and wonder how they measure up to, or fall short of, their bunkmates.”

Prior to the camp season, B B Camp staff will have been trained by program educators. Up to 20 girl campers, ages 11 to 14, are eligible to participate in one of four Gan Nashim units during a summer 2011 session. Each unit – all of which are influenced by and infused with Jewish values, observance and ideas – will focus on one of the following: Female role models and how they influence the girls’ ideas of body image; “normal” eating and bringing brachot (blessings) into their quotidian meals; distinguishing between physical and emotional appetites; and identifying food on a continuum between least- and most-healthy food choices.

“B’nai B’rith Camp is excited to pilot this curriculum and program for our community’s girls,” Michelle Koplan, B B Camp’s executive director said. “It gives us an avenue for constructive conversations surrounding body image and Jewish identity, which is one of many important middot (Jewish values) that we explore throughout the Camp experience.”

B’nai B’rith Camp, located on a lakeside campus on the scenic Oregon coast, is the premier Jewish resident camp in the Pacific Northwest. Since 1921, the camp has been dedicated to providing the best summer experience for today’s campers while preparing them to be tomorrow’s community leaders. B B Camp strives to teach the values and ethics of Jewish living by example, experience and creative expression. B’nai B’rith Camp has consistently proven to be a great place for youth to learn about themselves, their Jewish identity, their environment and how to relate to others.

B’nai B’rith Camp offers a wide range of activities, including arts and crafts, Jewish enrichment, athletics, waterskiing, sailing, canoeing, hydro-tubing, swimming in the heated, outdoor pool, dancing, nature, singing, high- and low-ropes challenge courses, leadership, community service, drama, creative writing, Shabbat celebrations, overnights and trips. B’nai B’rith Camp, an independent JCCA camp, is licensed by the State of Oregon and accredited by the American Camp Association (ACA).

B B Camp offers one 1-week session and two 3-week sessions for its overnight camp. Additionally, there are seven individual 1-week sessions of day camp for Lincoln County residents. B’nai B’rith Camp is under the guidance of the trained and experienced B B Camp staff.

http://blog.oregonlive.com/my-portland/2011/05/bnai_brith_camp_pilots_body-image_session_for_adolescent_girls.html