She pointed out that Lyme disease can be avoided if you “get the ticks off as soon as they attach; the longer they are there the more likely they will transmit the illness” although not all ticks transmit Lyme disease. She instructed the parents to tell their children to feel for them; she said the tick feels like a “little scab a little above the skin, very tiny like a little freckle.” She said to feel the skin, comb through the hair with your fingernails, feel the back of the neck, noting that campers are “always exposed to it.”

Dr. Schulman also warned to be aware of eating disorders, recalling one case where a girl essentially stopped eating for an entire month to lose weight for her brother’s wedding. She subsisted on a diet of water and cucumbers, losing 30 pounds. Three other girls copied her. “Anorectic behavior can be addictive,” she warned. “It’s hard to break the control, it sets off a pattern of behavior. They thought it was cool. I had several land in the hospital.” Children should eat three meals a day and two snacks, incorporating the five a day fruits or vegetables and drinking water. If your child sees a child restricting food not only should they be taught not to copy but they should tell their own mother who would in turn contact the camp. Children should be told that a child restricting food like that will get sick. She noted that they got the best tips on anorectic behavior from classmates.

Two other negative behaviors children, usually boys, pick up in camp is smoking and drinking alcohol. Dr. Schulman stressed that it is important to change the community’s attitude toward smokers, to say to the children when seeing a smoker that he’s a nebich, that we feel sorry for him, that it’s not cool, that he needs a refuah shlaima, that the smoker didn’t know that he would be addicted to it. Say to them “it’ll break my heart if you start smoking or drinking.” She pointed out that many of these “role models” who smoke should get medical help to stop.