These are papers written for healthcare professionals and parents by Wellspring staff members.

Viable Options for Treating Childhood Obesity:for the millions of Americans whose child is overweight, the question is—what do you do about it? This white paper explores the different treatment options available to parents and the respective effectiveness and risk of each option. READ MORE (pdf) »

Longer Interventions for Weight Loss = Best Long-Term Outcomes:explores the two most critical factors for long-tern results: length of treatment and weight loss results during treatment received.READ MORE (pdf) »

Methods of Determining Weight Status in Children:discusses the method of calculation for the Body Mass Index scale, the most commonly used and most appropriate measure of weight. READ MORE (pdf) »

Selected Published Papers by Wellspring Staff Members

Wellspring researchers have published 10 books and numerous papers on the treatment of obesity. The papers in this section illustrate that work.

Evaluation Studies of Programs for Overweight Young People

Immersion Programs for Treating Pediatric Obesity:
Follow-up Evaluations of Wellspring Camps and Academy of the Sierras –
A Boarding School for Overweight Teenagers: describes the scientific rationale for the creation of Wellspring’s immersion programs and the first published evaluation (which was very promising) of effects of Wellspring Camps and Wellspring Academies. READ MORE (pdf) »

Long-term Evaluation of Multi-disciplinary Treatment of Morbid
Obesity in Low-income Minority Adolescents: La Rabida Children’s
Hospital’s FitMatters Program: reports the first formal evaluation of an outpatient program that targeted very overweight low income minority children and their families. Effects were minimal for the vast majority of participants when evaluated two years after they began treatment, a major contrast to much more positive effects observed in Wellspring’s immersion programs. READ MORE (pdf) »

Effects of Parental lnvolvement in Behavioral Weight
Loss Therapy for Preadolescents: evaluation of two forms of outpatient treatment (a parent-child version in which parents participated fully in sessions with the children vs. a child-only version that had parents played a supportive role, but didn’t attend sessions) showed benefits for getting parents closely involved with the process of lifestyle change. READ MORE (pdf) »

Review Papers

Self-regulatory Failure: A Review with Clinical Implications: A theoretical analysis of the research that answers the question: what factors seem most responsible for lapses and relapses? Consistent self-monitoring seemed to prevent lapses better than any other single behavioral approach. READ MORE (pdf) »

Very Low Fat Diets are Superior to Low-Carbohydrate Diets: This paper makes a strong scientifically based argument in favor of very low fat diets while disputing the usefulness of low carb diets. READ MORE (pdf) »

Controversy about the Treatment of Obesity: Criticisms or Challenges? A scientifically based argument in favor of continuing to do research on the effectiveness of treatment programs for obesity. READ MORE (pdf) »

Selected Papers by Other Researchers of Direct Relevance to Wellspring’s Programs

Hundreds of papers and studies helped shape the approach we use in Wellspring. The following are directly relevant examples from the professional literature.

Dietary fat does affect obesity! A review paper focused on the controversy about the importance of fat in the diet for the development of obesity and the challenges of losing weight. READ MORE (pdf) »

‘Adventure therapy’ combined with cognitive behavioral treatment for overweight adolescents: demonstrates the value of the bonding experiences commonly observed in camps and outdoor challenges as a potentially valuable adjunct (motivator, builder of peer support) to treatment of obesity in young people. READ MORE (pdf) »

Lifestyle Interventions in the Treatment of Childhood Overweight:
A Meta-Analytic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials: Recent mathematically sophisticated review shows significant, albeit modest in comparison to Wellspring’s effects, benefits of cognitive-behavior therapy outpatient treatments with mostly middle-class overweight young people; overweight children and teens who received no treatment or an educational approach gained weight over time. READ MORE (pdf) »

Are the Eating and Exercise Habits of Successful Weight Losers Changing? This is one of a series of papers that evaluated members of the National Weight Control Registry – highly successful weight controllers. In this one, the researchers confirmed that even during the height of the low-carb diet craze, weight controllers who maintained a low fat diet and high levels of activity tended to maintain their weight most effectively. READ MORE (pdf) »

Assessment Tools

Medical, Emotional, and Social Effects of Weight: shows the impact weight has on the health of adolescents, including increased risk of diabetes and cancers as well as hiring and salary discrimination. MORE »

BMI Calculator: adolescent BMI calculator for ages up to 24 years old, providing BMI result with assessed need recommendations based on this result. MORE »