More, Please

Randy Watley, the assistant director of the Dallas County Juvenile Department, concedes there may be a problem. "If they are all complaining that they are hungry, we might have to look into it," he says. "But if they have those concerns over there I would want them to be addressed to us."

At the county juvenile facilities where youths are required to stay for longer than two months, the juvenile department accepts the sheriff's department meals for breakfast and lunch but then supplements that each day with a home-style dinner. The juveniles at the Texas Youth Village, for instance, can grab as much of the spaghetti being served at dinner as they want, Watley says. "We wanted to make it nicer because they are there for a little longer," he says.

Jo Ann Carson, an associate professor of clinical nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, suggests that maybe similar arrangements need to be made at the boot camp. Given the manner in which the meals are being served and the amount of exercise, she says, it may be necessary to increase the caloric content of the boot camp meals beyond the usual standards.

At the present, no one is closely evaluating whether the juveniles leave the camper thinner or less healthy than when they went in. (They do weigh the children as they arrive, and some are put on special diets because of prior malnutrition.)

For the slight 13-year-old whose eyes watered frequently when he talked to a reporter during his stint at the boot camp, no scale was needed.

"When you do the exercises and stuff, it's kind of hard to stand up," he said.