The Boot Camp Guru

BOOT CAMPS EXPLAINED

1.How did they get here?

 They arrived here from America, where boot camps were first used to reform prisoners, soldiers and defiant teens before reaching the general public in the form of holiday breaks. Camps in the US, though, are different from ours. They’ll take a single issue such as detox, weight loss or hiking and stick excusively to that – setting you back in the process over £3000 for one week. That’s twice the price of a typical week at one of England’s luxury boot camps!

Bringing the idea across the Atlantic, and focusing it on female weight loss through the use of British Military Training techniques, The Camp in Scotland was the very first boot camp in the United Kingdom. It opened its doors in January, 2007. Their PR girl ripped off the idea, spotting her way – through cost cutting, hefty pricing and a media blitzkrieg – to a shedload of money. Sunny Moran set up New You Boot Camp in 2007. Just over two years later, we now have 15 main boot camps. They are, in roughly chronological order: Nubeginnings, FitFarms, Back2Basics, Apples & Pears, No1 Boot Camp, Tesco’s Boot Camp, Prestige Boot Camp, GI Jane, Bootylicious , Bootcamp Beach, Base Camp, Trimmeryou Bootcamp, Reboot & Phoenix Bootcamp.

In this economic climate, a boom industry certainly; but as every camp at full capacity would still only be treating fewer than 300 people at a time out of a population of 61 million( in less than award-winning health, by and large), this could well be a new industry with a lot further still to go. The arrival of predatory supermarket chain Tesco on the scene would seem to suggest this.

2. Why this site exists

Without any regulatory body to control them, or trade association to promote best practice in them, boot camps can be a bit of a minefield. Nor does it help that almost every single boot camp on its website claims to be ” the best”, ” the only”, and ” No.1″ . Well, they can’t all be ” the best “. And, in reality, too many are very far from it. Someone, therefore, needs to explain this new industry to the outside world and provide thorough, independent, fair and factual reviews of our nation’s boot camps, comparing them across the board, with a guiding principle that the primary duty of care is always to the consumer. Newspapers and magazines haven’t been much use either, being generally content to trot out the same old ’ journalist goes to boot camp’ diary piece , which usually ends up just being a puff for whatever camp dished out the freebie So, in essence,  that is why I feel that a site like this is much needed. My qualifications for being able to write it, as a published author and experienced editor, can be seen on ‘ About The Boot Camp Guru ‘.

3.Why is their popularity growing?

 Boot camps exist to answer a call from people (85%F;15%M) who need outside help. Things have gone way beyond fat-busting knickers and air-brushing holiday photos. Yet, although the UK has more obese people than any other country in Western Europe – twice that of neighbouring France for example – only around 5% actually attend a boot camp. To its increasing cost, the NHS has seen the consequences: high blood pressure, diabetes, back, hip and knee operations, stomach-stapling and gastric by-passes.

Other camp-goers are often not drastically over-weight, just stuck in a ruinously unhealthy rut and needing a kick up the backside to snap out of it. Perhaps, locked into a stressful, sedentary job, they’re never exercising – but they are forever eating fatty, fast foods in a hurry. Probably a bit of binge drinking in there too. Or, maybe, it’s just The Bridget Jones Syndrome: a blanket, a sofa, a chick-flick, a bottle of Chardonnay and something sweetly filling within a pluck.

Frankly, your issue can be with anything from cocaine to cream cakes, whisky to pizza, down through Coco Pops, Kit Kats, Subway Sandwiches, chocolates, chips and red wine – to whatever; it’s just got to be sorted out, and preferably long-term. Some camp-goers, though, are already in pretty good shape when they arrive but, as rally drivers or social marathon runners, they’ve just come in for a tune-up. Others aren’t too fussed about keeping the weight off, even if they’d never deny they’d like to, because their primary motive in going to a boot camp is fast weight loss in the sort term: it’s bikini-time again, a new boy-friend, a wedding day – perhaps all three.

And here we bump into the grandest, illogical irony of the boot camp industry. They offer to change your life for good, whilst simultaneously longing for your repeat business! The trick here, if you really want to turn your life around, is to go for camps with a strong holistic side. All boot camp-goers do, however, have one thing in common: they’ve just spent over £1000  and surrendered a week of their holiday time for a suspected kicking, largely in the company of total strangers. In other words, your fellow campers are more likely to be seriously committed than just vaguely involved.

Another reason for the boom in boot camps is that it’s not difficult to open one. In fact, it’s a simple procedure. Typically, it goes: rent premises in countryside near Exmoor/Dartmoor; hire in ex-military trainers, cook, nutritionist, camp manager and guest speakers; post up website, slicker the better; charge 1000+ for the week; invite celebs and journos for free publicity; add more dates; proceed to bank.

Accordingly, boot camp owners are a very mixed bunch with differing reasons for founding their camps. Some, like me, passionately believe in boot camps; others I’m not so sure about. Is it just co-incidence that the boot camps I rate the lowest – New You, No.1 Boot Camp, GI Jane & Fitfarms – are run by people from PR, Beauty, Cleaning & Business respectively, directors without qualifications in the health industry that I’m aware of , and who are rarely sighted in the midst of the physical action?  By contrast, director Iain Reitze of Prestige is a national authority on the subject and as head trainer too, he’s always in the thick of things. Katie Duncan of Apples & Pears has loads of sports science notches on her belt, and you just try holding her back from joining in!  And so I could go on, but you get the picture. As a consequence, boot camp owners are going to behave very differently. Some, unfortunately, are only too happy to kick off with some imaginatively inflated publicity about themselves.

4. Inflated Publicity

One of the main reasons for the very existence of  The First National Boot Camp Survey is to correct what some boot camps say about themselves – and put  consumers straight before parting with their cash.

Some examples of inflated publicity:

(i)  New You Boot Camp  is ” the best boot camp in the world” – according to Flavia Bertolini from ‘ Celebs on Sunday’. It’s hard to keep a straight face writing that sentence - but then I expect Flavia has visited all the other boot camps in the world and probably knows exactly what she’s talking about. I would usually turn at once to ‘Celebs on Sunday’ if I wanted an authoritative verdict on a matter of international health. Wouldn’t anyone? An opinion barely worth the paper it’s written on, in my view.  But it sounds great, and I shudder to think how many people may have fallen for it!  And especially since New You’s ‘ Back to Basics ‘ boot camp is rated here as the worst boot camp in England.

Similarly, when OK! Magazine presents six flippertygibbet sound-bite pieces on six best bikini boot camps dotted around the world, and the text for New You Boot Camp just happens to be the third to appear – most likely for reasons of page lay-out only – this is inflated ludicrously into the momentous awarding of a world title! OK! Magazine would, I’m sure – as a celeb gossip mag - be the first to admit that it’s neither a weighty authority on boot camps nor, in that little lightweight piece, was it even trying to be one. This was no serious and defintive survey of the subject, quite obviously. But that didn’t stop the New You PR Machine going dementedly over-the-top and trumpeting loudly that ‘ It’s official! The votes are in! We are now No.3 Boot Camp in The World ‘. Clutching at straws, or what?

Likewise, when Closer Magazine merely included New You in a mini flip-list of seven boot camps, the PR Machine went utterly bonkers again: ‘ We are Europe’s No.1′  it trilled. Yes,  of course you are.  And I’ve just seen a squadron of low-flying pigs outdoing the Red Arrows!

(ii) The self-crowning No.1 Boot Camp is nothing of the sort. It calls itself,  ’ the choice of celebs’, ‘ the nation’s favourite boot camp’ etc. etc. when, in reality, it’s near to the bottom of the pile.

(iii) Nubeginnings, whilst good but hideously expensive, is not ” Britain’s best boot camp” – just because some staffer at ‘ The Tatler’ wanted to sex up her copy.  Try going to  every boot camp in England first, then your judgement would have some weight; otherwise it’s pure fly-by-night froth.

(iv) Ultimate Boot Camp(suspended, possibly deceased) said it was ‘ Voted No1 by More magazine’, from which you’re meant to understand it’s the best boot camp in England. Total tosh! A reporter on the magazine tried out four different methods to lose weight, concluding that the boot camp way was the best of the four approaches. So, boiled down to reality, Ultimate Boot Camp was actually ‘ Voted No1 Slimming Method Out of the Four We Tried’. Such deceitful hoodwinking of the public is difficult to admire.

(v) The website at FitFarms almost bursts with bragging about how it was voted ‘ The UK’s No.1 Weight Loss Camp’ by no lesser an authority than The Sunday Times. The pages are almost radioactive in their reflected glory. But, in reality, Fitfarms has  just erected an oak-tree out of an acorn. The paper ran a short feature – little more than a flip filler piece – on eight healthy holidays to be had in eight different destinations, anywhere from Mexico to Morocco. As no more than an example of the type, they chose a boot camp in England. It just happened to be FitFarms. No way does that make it ‘ The UK’s No.1′. This was no comparative survey of all the boot camps in England, as Fitfarms is inviting you to believe. If so, where are all the others? But The Trading Standards people aren’t going to do anything about it, because the article is ‘open to interpretation’. Yes, but, er, maybe not that one?!

 

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