The inside story is beginning to emerge.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
A remote academy teaches heavy teens to lose weight
Teen had given up on weight loss
By BLYTHE BERNHARD
The Orange County Register
REEDLEY ? Over breakfast of Cheerios and skim milk, Melissa Riggs and her friends debate the value of their chewable chocolate vitamins. At 25 calories and 1/2 grams of fat, are they really worth it?
The conversation shifts to whether the lemonade needs more sugar substitute and other creative ways to make their food taste better.
"You guys, last night I put cottage cheese in my spaghetti!" one girl says to a chorus of groans. "It tasted like lasagna, I swear!"
Such talk is common at the Academy of the Sierras, the nation's first weight-loss boarding school. It's the temporary home to 80 boys and girls who wage a battle against excess pounds and the pain that put them there.
Students like Melissa, 17, move to the sparsely populated farmland outside Fresno to be isolated from their families, friends and unhealthy triggers. They keep track of each bite, all of which total around 1,300 calories and less than 12 grams of fat each day.
In 15 weeks, Melissa has lost 54 pounds. At 213, she wants to lose 70 more pounds. She plans to stay through January and then finish her senior year at Woodbridge High in Irvine.
"I want to get healthy, and I'm working really hard," Melissa says after getting up at 6:45 a.m. for the daily two-mile walk on the dusty roads surrounding the school. "Sometimes I'm really not motivated, and I don't want to get up. ... By the end of the day, I'm glad I didn't sleep in."
'AN INSIDE JOB'
With one in five American teenagers considered overweight, a growing segment of the $50 billion weight-loss industry is focused on childhood obesity. While there are dozens of therapeutic boarding schools for behavior problems, the academy is the first devoted to weight loss.
Students must be at least 30 pounds overweight, but most carry an extra 50 to 100 pounds.
The academy costs $5,800 a month. That's about
$500 per pound lost each month at the school by the average student, based on the school's weight-loss statistics.
Students take classes in nutrition, cooking and fitness plus typical high school subjects. They exercise about three hours a day and receive at least four hours a week of individual and group therapy. The
average stay is nine months."Is this a safer version of the real world? Absolutely," says the school's executive director, Phil Obbard, who
previously worked for Slim-Fast and has a
history degree from Yale University. "Weight loss is that catalyst for behavioral change and emotional growth. We couldn't do what we do if it weren't in this enclosed, safe environment."
Not everyone is sure that temporarily placing kids in artificial surroundings can work in the long run.
The Child Welfare League of America and the American Psychological Association have asked for a federal study of therapeutic boarding schools' methods and effectiveness. Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, introduced legislation in April that calls for tighter oversight of the schools nationwide.
Dr. Dan Cooper, a UC Irvine pediatrician who treats obesity, agrees that programs can succeed by controlling physical activity and diet.
But Cooper, who is working on a childhood obesity study with the National Institutes of Health, says the
bigger challenge comes from outside influences such as family dynamics, lack of exercise options and fast-food marketing.
"How do you change those things?"
School officials report that 15 students who stayed for the 2004-05 school year on average maintained their weight loss for at least 10 months after leaving. Longer-term results are expected next year.
"Those kids who leave successfully, with our blessing ? we've seen 70 to 90 percent who do well," Obbard says.
The program depends on a strict system that gives students privileges for good behavior.
New students may make
two 10-minute calls a week.
Physical relationships are banned. Field trips, longer calls and other freedoms are earned as students reach exercise, academic and food-monitoring goals.
Some kids rebel by sneaking in cell phones or walking off the campus. Punishment can include
extra chores, temporary isolation from other students or time in a nearby wilderness camp.
Some parents of former academy students bristle at the communication barriers and what they consider health risks. Katie Golichnik of Wisconsin says her 15-year-old daughter was told to drop down to 700 calories a day if she didn't lose more than one pound a week.
While some students might eat that little, Obbard says the school doesn't advise it.
"Activity is always more important than food restriction," he says.
Golichnik says a school official chastised her for pulling her daughter out in December after one semester. The girl has continued to lose weight with help from an eating-disorders therapist.
"They had my daughter believing there was no way she could be successful, that nobody can work with teenagers like they can, which obviously wasn't true," Golichnik says.Justine Novack, 16, of Laguna Hills attended the school for three months last year. She
gained weight after leaving and is now on a different regimen of diet and exercise.
"It's such a closed environment that the
advice and therapy you get there doesn't work when you get home," she says. "I don't have time to exercise three hours a day."Some students thrive on the regimen. Dustin Johnson, 18, says his parents told him to go to the academy or they'd kick him out of their house. The senior from Connecticut now loves to play sports, something he had given up when his knees buckled under his 325-pound weight. He's lost 44 pounds in five weeks.
"The first thing I said was thank you to my parents," Johnson says. "I know that four months here will change my life."
Some experts say attitude, rather than intervention, makes the difference in maintaining weight loss.
"Nothing works until you're ready to lose weight," says Abby Ellin, author of "Teenage Waistland: A Former Fat Kid Weighs In on Living Large, Losing Weight, and How Parents Can (and Can't) Help."
"You can have schools, you can have camps, you can have surgery, but ultimately it's an inside job."
THE CHALLENGES
At an all-school meeting, students and staff give out awards for friendship, good grades and fitness. Some students are chided for trying to get out of exercise or littering.
"I know some of you are really depressed but someday you won't be, and do you want this place to be ugly?" asks Molly Carmel, the school's senior clinical director, who has a master's degree in social work.
Administrators acknowledge that many students bring problems beyond their weight ? depression, self-mutilation or behavior disorders.
This year school officials called
Tulare County sheriff's deputies to remove a newly admitted problem student.
"
Unfortunately, when you're admitting kids from across the country, you're admitting kids without all the information you would need," Obbard says. :rofl:
The Sheriff's Department also visited last month to investigate a relationship between a staff member and a student. 
"Somebody who works there came across some inappropriate e-mails and notified our department," says Sgt. Chris Douglass, Sheriff's Department spokeswoman.
The case was turned over to the Tulare County District Attorney's Office, and Obbard says the staff member was fired. Charges have not been filed.
Unlike most residential treatment facilities, the school is
not required to be licensed by the state departments of health or social services.
Several current and former students say the academy, which costs more than Harvard University,
isn't at the academic level of their high schools.The campus is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, a designation that allows most students to transfer the credits to their home schools.
Because it is a private school, instructors don't need state teaching credentials.
Katherine Howard, 22, teaches philosophy, world history and English. She says her experience as an obese teenager is an advantage as a teacher.
"I wanted to be a part of this big push to get kids healthy," she says. "It took me until I was 18 to deal with it. I did it entirely by myself. That doesn't work for children."
On a cool day in October, a math teacher shows up 10 minutes late as students wait outside the classroom. Students can be seen knitting scarves during class.
In the school's test kitchen, young chefs rub salmon fillets with seasonings of their choosing. Two boys show off their Cajun-spiced fish. Two girls dip fingers into their sauce to taste it.
The cooking teacher shouts at the girls for touching the sauce and tells them to pack up their work station.
"You failed! You failed! You failed!"
CHANGING HER LIFE
As a baby, Melissa grew at a fast rate and stayed overweight through childhood. She says she used food to deal with a strained relationship with her dad and the stress of changing schools.
At Woodbridge, Melissa was on the swim and water polo teams and performed with a dance chorus. Still, she couldn't shake the weight.
"I didn't want to admit to myself that I was overweight, so I didn't really deal with it," Melissa says. "I didn't really talk about my feelings."
Melissa reluctantly agreed to go to the boarding school in June after her mom suggested it. She wasn't sure it would be any different from her other attempts at dieting.
Now she loves seeing the difference in her face and stomach. She looks forward to compliments for something other than her blue eyes.
For her mother, Leslie Riggs, the result is miraculous.
"She kind of had given up on the idea of losing weight," Riggs says. "The turnaround in her personality and her outlook is worth every penny."
While Melissa is away, her mom and sister Stephanie are following a similar diet and exercise plan. Melissa fears gaining weight at home, but feels ready to face any temptations.
"I train myself to think that unhealthy food is bad for me so when I pass McDonald's or Carl's Jr. I don't want to eat it anymore."
"I don't want to screw up," she says. "I really want to change my life."
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