Boot Camp - A Term With Many Meanings

Do you remember when the term boot camp meant a basic training camp used by the military to train new recruits? Simply put, the military would take civilians, house them, cloth them, feed them and train them to become soldiers. According to the Army, that would entail 9 weeks of training, while the Navy claims they can accomplish the same thing within 8 weeks. The Marine boot camp runs for 12 weeks as they have higher physical requirements. The term itself is derived from the type of footwear that is provided to camp trainees in the military. However, the term is no longer restricted to just military use.

Obviously, the most notorious type of program, other than the original military use of the term, is when it is used in a correctional capacity as it refers to adolescents. Normally, these types of camps are within the US Penal System and many parents send their errant teens to these programs. It uses techniques that apply to military recruits and they are also taught socially acceptable patterns of behavior. Most times the pattern follows closely to what a military training camp would entail, not at all similar to what a youth would consider a camping hiking adventure.

While there are many different meanings of the term boot camp, they all seem to have a common thread: hard work and don’t talk back. So many organizations tend to incorporate the term to suit their business and with the popularity of this type program, perhaps a touch of discipline is what many of us need. It seems that programs, such as a Fat Camp in general are available to overweight individuals who have been unsuccessful in losing weight with solitary dieting. This type of program employs strict routines and rigorously filled timetables that were formally only associated with the military. Perhaps this implies that these types of base camp environments can help those who may be unable to help themselves.

Are there other types of these camps? Yes, they are everywhere you look. There are probably some that you have never heard of, or some you can’t even believe exist, but one thing you can be sure of is that they are most definitely not like summer camp. In the 1980’s, Georgia and Oklahoma were the first to open “camps” for prisoners, done mainly to reduce the population in largely overcrowded prisons, and as a preventive measure for those likely to commit crime again. There are also camps for things such as paper and essay writing, spiritual boot camps, baby boot camps and leadership boot camps.

The big question would seem to be, do they work? And if they do is it just a temporary fix? Does it help teens when they go through the boot camp system? Many guardians believe that juvenile boot camps will scare their child into making the right decisions. However, experts tell us that this type of training camp will not produce a “happy camper for life” so to speak, but will only produce temporary results and may very well cause greater problems later on down the road.

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