Custom Choice Cereal pointed out less than a month ago that one of the few gluten-free summer camps in the US is located in our beautiful State of North Carolina. Camp Kanata’s gluten-free week this year will be from June 27 to July 3. If you are interested in this for your child(ren) you should act quickly since the camp is usually booked by late February!

This being said we feel the need to share some very interesting research findings from the University of California San Francisco’s Department of Pediatrics. These might serve as an encouragement to (re-)enroll your child(ren) in a gluten-free summer camp this summer. A brief summary of the research report was printed in the online version of Pediatrics, The Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The research team asked 104 children with celiac disease aged 7 to 17 to answer a survey consisting of 14 questions, and 77 of them completed the questionnaire at the beginning and at the end of a week at a gluten-free summer camp. The results were astonishing:

• All children felt improvement in well-being, self-perception, and emotional outlook
• None felt different from other kids or frustrated by their diet
• Campers on a gluten-free diet for less than 4 years reported improvements in 11 of the 14 questions
• The positive effects were more pronounced in children who had been on a gluten-free diet for less than 4 years versus those who had been gluten-free for longer

While the long-term effects need further investigation, the study concludes that “stress and anxiety around food and social interactions” can at least temporarily be alleviated by the safe environment of a gluten-free summer camp.