Program Food

[Nihilanthic]

I found some pics of some TB kids... all the boys are skinny and all the girls are chubby. Probably the horrible diet theyre on.

Are they cheap, or is the bad nutrition intentional so they break down easier?

They never got to the heart of me because they assumed from the beginning they knew me.

http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?topic=9403&forum=38#99484' target='_new'>To each her own, Anonymous

[Deborah]

Such a wonderful example of de-escalation!!
So TSW, do you think staff can be 'trained' to do this, or is it something you either have or don't have? If so, you should be training the counselors.

These programs are just WAY to serious and over zealous with consequences and punishment for every little fart. It simply breeds more resentment even if the kid looks like they are complying on the surface.

On another day, there or elsewhere, that same kid could've been restrained to death, when a little humor and realness was just what the doctor ordered.

[Nihilanthic]

Dude, if youre caucaisan and in Korea Im sure such a homogenous nation (as far as race goes) would loove you just for being foreign. In japan thats the case and then some.... dunno if Korea is the same but Id imagine so, they seem to like to copy Japan :grin:

Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
--H. L. Mencken, American publisher

[bandit1978]

The food at Provo Canyon was terrible.  All the girls gained weight.  I gained 25 lbs.  In a year and a half.  I'm only 5'4"

They were so cheap, so the food was like canned ground beef or something.  Everything was deep-fried, even breakfast.  I'm from the northeast, and we don't eat huge fried breakfasts.  My stomache couldn't handle that stuff.  So the staff put me on "tray watch", and I had to show them my tray before and after I ate.  They would sometimes make me get more food, and stay there until I ate it.  So then I would go back to the unit and throw up.  

The entire reward system was based on food.  If you were on a higher level, all you did was eat all day- McDonalds, candy, chips, ect...  It was really sick.  

And the staff there ate the same way.  Thats why so many of them are obese.  They are really disgusting people- they claim to be all moral, and don't drink caffeine or alcohol and don't watch certain movies and don't stay out at night dancing...yet they habitually stuff themselves with Supersize meals and junkfood.  They really don't take care of their bodies.  

And there was a dietician at the school, who met with each of us during intake to discuss our diets-  and she was certifiably "morbidly obese"!  She weighed more than 300lbs.  I wouldn't be suprised if she has gotten gastric bypass surgery.    

Not saying that I was a super-healthy eater before going there.   But the whole food situation at PCS is really disgusting and unhealthy and dysfunctional, and a lot of girls left there with some serious food issues (I still struggle with vomiting, which started at Provo Canyon).  And the staff are really disgusting and hypocritical.

[Anonymous]

On 2005-07-30 04:25:00, Three Springs Waygookin wrote:

"Is it just me or does it seem like most program food tasted like dog crap?



I know its hard to prepare food for large crowds, but damn in some of the places I have worked I would not even consider feeding the food to a dog.



Here is a Typical Three Springs Weekend Menu



breakfast



cereal milk granola bar sugar



snack



lunch



macaroni, beans, little smokies



snack



dinner



white bread, baloney, chips



snack





This is the food we prepared in our campsite, and I promise you most of the time it tasted like crap even if we did do a good job cooking it. The dining hall food normally gave me the squirts, and some of the kids used to brag about not having to drop a load more than once a week.



I do remember one really good meal. The little twerps were doing really well one day, and I decided that rather than give them candy for a reward I was going to sneak down to the cafeteria and raid the fridge.



I swiped a bag of frozen french fries, a block of cheddar cheese, and a #10 can of chili. With that I jacked three onions, three green peppers, and of all things a watermelon.



After staggering back to my campsite I found the kids huddled by a buidling with a kid on the roof refusing to get off. My cocounselor was threatening to climb up on the roof to restrain him. I stashed the eats in the cookshed, and told the kid on the roof that he had choice of getting off the roof or having me coming up on the roof and singing Madonna songs at the top of my lungs until he came down.(Kids sometimes do stupid stuff, so do adults for that matter and this is not limited to sending their children to abusive programs with lunatic singing counselors, but none the less kids sometimes do dumb stuff and have a hard time backing down from their original bonehead decision, so it helps to give them away out of the problem with their dignity intact)  



Well little homer came down off that roof and apoligized. I told him he was on roof restriction for the rest of his stay, and if he did it again i was going to short sheet his bed one night. Upon realizing I was teasing him, and that I was not going to drag him off to the isolation room, or put him on some kind of lame suicide watch,  he loosened up a bit, and chopped wood for two hours on his own intiative to burn off some steam, and make it up to the group.(i wasn't even gonna consquence him, but he volunteered and I figured well if he wants to man up and do some community service his heart was in the right place) Nice kid to he even called a huddle to say he was sorry and he was really just mad because he thought someone had ripped on his momma. turns out that someone did rip on the kids momma but that is another story that involves a  three kids on one beat down, and me getting hit in the arm with a shovel. (strangely not at all involving the two original boys, and the whole thing was instigated by my "special ed" cocounselor)



The rest of us cleaned up our campsite while I layed on the feed of the decade. We ate pretty darn good chili cheese fries, and watermelon that night. I even took them down with me later a

nd i swiped some ice cream bars. The only downside was I had to listen to their damn farts for the rest of the night in the cabin. But hey they were the first group in bed, and they had some fun watching me catch my shirt of fire when cooking dinner. (another story involving me using magical counseling fluid to light the campfire aka the gas for the campsite generator)





But aside from that memorable occasion I can rarely remember a descent meal, anyone else have anything on that subject?   "

Well, these are instituionalized-style programs so it makes sense the food would look and taste like crappola.

I like your posts TSW. Sounds like you are one the rare staff members who has a heart and tried your best to treat the kids with respect and concern for their safety and well-being.

Keep up the good work.  The industry really needs the voices of ex-staff members to help knock some sense into these parents who put their faith (and their bank acount) in the hands of these lunatic profiteers.

[Anonymous]

On 2005-07-30 22:07:00, bandit1978 wrote:

"The food at Provo Canyon was terrible.  All the girls gained weight.  I gained 25 lbs.  In a year and a half.  I'm only 5'4"



They were so cheap, so the food was like canned ground beef or something.  Everything was deep-fried, even breakfast.  I'm from the northeast, and we don't eat huge fried breakfasts.  My stomache couldn't handle that stuff.  So the staff put me on "tray watch", and I had to show them my tray before and after I ate.  They would sometimes make me get more food, and stay there until I ate it.  So then I would go back to the unit and throw up.  



The entire reward system was based on food.  If you were on a higher level, all you did was eat all day- McDonalds, candy, chips, ect...  It was really sick.  



And the staff there ate the same way.  Thats why so many of them are obese.  They are really disgusting people- they claim to be all moral, and don't drink caffeine or alcohol and don't watch certain movies and don't stay out at night dancing...yet they habitually stuff themselves with Supersize meals and junkfood.  They really don't take care of their bodies.  



And there was a dietician at the school, who met with each of us during intake to discuss our diets-  and she was certifiably "morbidly obese"!  She weighed more than 300lbs.  I wouldn't be suprised if she has gotten gastric bypass surgery.    



Not saying that I was a super-healthy eater before going there.   But the whole food situation at PCS is really disgusting and unhealthy and dysfunctional, and a lot of girls left there with some serious food issues (I still struggle with vomiting, which started at Provo Canyon).  And the staff are really disgusting and hypocritical.  
"

Wow Bandit, this place sounds like a house of horrors.  Thank God you got out of there and I hope things are going well for you, now.

How can these parents NOT see what is going on in these places?

These poor kids are in a 24-7 struggle to survive emotional, mental and physical maltreatment.

You all really are the heroes.

 :nworthy:
 ::

[Anonymous]

If the parents really knew what went on they probably would not send their children to these programs. Everything is sugar coated and most of the parents who choose a program do so out of desparation - they are at their wits end.

[Deborah]

More specifically, my question was, have you ever witnessed someone who gets off on restraining kids come around to a more humane approach?
I tend to think it's possible but it would require a genunine desire and a lengthy mentoring process. I feel certain that a staff person is not going to be able to immediately impliment those attitudes and skills after reading a manual and partaking in a brief program orientation.

[Nihilanthic]

Plenty do know whats going on, they simply buy into the mentality of "treat em bad so they know how good they had it at home".

Locate the blind spot in the culture--the place where the culture isn't looking, because it dare not--because if it were to look there, its previous values would dissolve.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1561769118/circlofmiamithem' target='_new'>Terence McKenna

[Anonymous]

Better than the rotten stuff they fed us in AZ.  our program manager happened to be friends via her church with the local grocer, and so we had lots of old, slimey chicken.

Dee-licious.

[Anonymous]

I remember PCS was really big on powdered food.  Everything was powdered!  Powdered eggs, powdered milk, powdered mashed potatoes, powdered soup.  I almost expected Powdered Toast Man to come flying through the cafeteria.