TEENAGER Darren Debono said that beating the bulge at a pioneering camp has helped turn his life around.

Last year, Darren was a depressed 13-year-old, weighing 20 stone, lacking in confidence and enduring taunts about his size.

A year after spending six weeks at a camp for overweight teenagers Darren is now almost four stone lighter, enjoying a renewed self-confidence, doing well at school and has many new friends.

Darren, now 14, of Glade View, High Wycombe, said: 'I have got more self confidence which is the best thing, I exercise a lot more and the weight has stayed off.

'I'm hoping to be a regular fit person. People don't make fun of me that much any more and most of the bullying has stopped, I used to get a lot of it. That six weeks has really changed my life.'

Darren, who goes to St Bernard's Roman Catholic School, Daws Hill Lane, High Wycombe, went to the camp, based at Leeds Metropolitan University in Headingly, last July. It which was featured on a Channel Four documentary and was the first of its kind in Britain.

He said: 'It was not like the fat camps you hear about in the States. It was more a keep fit camp, where regular exercise was the key.

'Before I went life was fairly tough, I was very depressed.'

Darren's mother Anne, said she has noticed a big change in her son over the last year.

She said: 'After two weeks of him being there we went up to see him and took him out for the day. He walked tall, that is all I can say. Before he walked shoulders hunched up and trying to hide more or less. That was after just two weeks.'

The Health Survey for England, which looks at the number of young people affected by obesity, found from 1995 to 1997 there were 6.6 per cent of boys and seven per cent of girls under 15 years old who suffered from a severe weight problem.

Mrs Debono added: 'I would absolutely encourage any parent to consider it. I'm telling you this has been a complete and utter life saver.