Headscratchers / Heavyweights

• If Gerald's parents were all about Gerald losing weight, and Gerald didn't want to go to camp, then why not sign him up for summer baseball, or swimming class, or karate? He would still get exercise but he wouldn't have to be gone all summer. Granted, there wouldn't have been a movie if they did that, but it feels like they just wanted him out of the house for the summer, which has some pretty Unfortunate Implications.
  • Because at Camp Hope they have staff members to look over his food intake and presumably make sure he doesn't eat any junk. If he was home, he could just sneak off to a convenience store when they weren't looking much like with that kiddie lemonade stand where he gorged an entire pitcher.
    • Considering that the campers smuggled in tons of snacks, which they've apparently been doing for years, sending him to camp really wouldn't solve anything either. Not like his parents knew that when they signed him up, of course.
    • Well yeah exactly. They didn't know about the smuggling and how it made the weight loss program ineffective so they believed sending him there would make him lose more weight than he would at home.
  • Weight loss camps for kids are highly structured. Caloric intake is generally strictly regulated and the entire day is planned around various activities.
• Why would they have Pat be a central character of the video? He says he's been going there since he was 10 (almost two decades by that point) and he's still obese. That would seem to show how much the camp doesn't work.
  • Given it's later shown how easy it was for the kids to smuggle in junk food, it's implied the Bushkins weren't exactly running a tight ship and cared more about everyone's feelings than the effectiveness of the weight management program. So naturally, they would feel that having Pat talk about how long he's been at the camp and enjoys it would be effective marketing.