Fat To Fast

PROLOGUE

My name is Dr. Dennis Cooke (PhD), and this is the story of how I started an obese teenage boy on the road to fulfilling his sporting dream.

As a clinical psychologist, I had decided to retire early from university lecturing at the age of fifty. Six months earlier, my wife, Mona, died suddenly after a massive stroke. I then sold my home in Melbourne, and moved two thousand kilometres north to Urangan, a suburb in the coastal city of Hervey Bay. Located three hours’ drive north of Brisbane, The Bay offered me the new relaxing lifestyle and climate I had been seeking. It also offered me a chance to take up lawn bowls and do volunteer work with local youth, free of the pressures involved as a professional.

After an initial ten years of lecturing, and prior to retirment, for more than twenty years, I had specialised in the area of youth addictions. Supported by grants from governments and benevolent trusts, I was able to establish a youth-only rehabilitation unit in Melbourne

Here, my staff and I primarily treated teenagers abusing narcotics, cannabis, hallucinogens, pills and alcohol. We also helped young people with gambling problems and Internet/video games obsessions, but to a much lesser extent.

During my four years as its head, before briefly returning to university lecturing, this facility served several hundred teenagers plagued by the aforementioned addictions. It therefore came as a surprise to me, at the time I left, when I realised that we had not admitted a single food addict. And so it happened, that one of my last acts as Chief was to mention this fact, somewhat flippantly I must confess, to my  replacement, Dr Ross Boyd (PhD).

Referred to as Dr. Ross by all who knew him, he had been my student whilst completing his research thesis during my previous days as a lecturer. After assessing the work he presented to me at that time, I had no hesitation in recommending he be awarded his doctorate. I also had no hesitation in having him offered a fellowship in my department at the university, and later recruiting him to my team at the rehabilitation unit when it was eventually opened to residents. And, finally, I had no hesitation in recommending him to the rehab unit’s Board of Directors as the right person to fill my shoes as psychologist-in-charge when I returned to lecturing. Fortunately, they had the very good sense to agree.

But Ross had not only been a former student, and very capable member of my staff, he had also been a good friend. So it was for this reason that we decided to maintain very close contact while I was a lecturer, and later, a retiree, despite the distance. And it was because of this contact, and my respect for the man, that I came to be involved with the teenage boy in question, a boy who had a rare natural talent. It was just not the talent that anybody who knew him back then would ever have expected.

Told with the total support, cooperation, and some direct written input from all the major players, ‘Fat to Fast’ is the story of the challenging journey of self-discovery, awareness, and emotional healing on which I escorted and supervised this fine young man.

CHAPTER 1 – PRELIMINARIES

THE INITIAL REQUEST FROM DR. ROSS BOYD

For the first two years of my retirement, Ross and I regularly e-mailed each other. I would occasionally tell him what a great lifestyle I had up north, unsuccessfully attempting to make him envious. In return, he would occasionally seek out my opinion from time to time in reference to particularly challenging cases. That is until early one April, when I sent an e-mail advising him that I was flying down for ten days. I was due to arrive on Thursday, 9th April, to spend Easter with my son, Darren, and his family, whom I always missed a lot. Included in this e-mail was an off-the-cuff comment about treating food addictions.

The response that I received from Ross made me think of the old saying, Me and my big mouth. In his replying e-mail, my former student and subordinate drew my attention to a new case of food addiction. It was one in which he had a very personal interest. The sufferer was Kendal Kirby, a morbidly obese fourteen-year-old boy who lived with his divorced mother in the house next to Ross.

Ross knew both Kendal and his mother, Gina, very well. And based on his knowledge of this single-parent family, he had decided the boy really needed to be in a controlled environment for several months away from his home and mother. He required the sort of role-modelling and close supervision that Gina was unable to provide at the time.

Although having finalised her acrimonious divorce three years earlier, she had not coped well. Basically, she placed her own emotional needs ahead of her son’s at the time, and continued to do so as he became a teenager. This, in turn, adversely affected Kendal’s emotional state. And matters only became worse when his father committed suicide. The result was that an already-slightly-chubby primary school boy, having been nurtured in a dysfunctional home, eventually became a grossly overweight high school student, who really needed to get away.

But the rehab unit was not the place. So Ross wanted me to meet them. Why? Because he felt that Kendal’s needs would best be served if he came to live with me in Hervey Bay, adding, While you’re dealing with Kendal, I can work on Gina. And having a kid around will keep you feeling young, anyway.

Ross also pointed out that it would be good timing as Victorian schools started their holidays at the end of term one on Friday, 3rd April. Kendal would be able to fly back to Hervey Bay with me on the twentieth, if there was still a seat available on each of the two flights involved.

Living in a three-bedroom two-storey home, typical in that part of Queensland, I actually had the room to accommodate him. But the idea of entering into a private boarding arrangement with a mother and son I didn’t know was way outside of my comfort zone.

My immediate response was to e-mail him back with that regular catchphrase quote from U.S. TV psychologist, ‘Dr Phil’, Are you kidding me?

But he wasn’t. He was absolutely serious, and had complete trust. So we exchanged a flurry of more e-mails. Finally, I agreed to be introduced to Kendal and Gina on the Tuesday evening after Easter at their home. This would mean I could have dinner with the Boyd family first. This consisted of Ross, his wife Sally, ten-year-old daughter, Angela, and twelve-year-old son, Wesley, so named after a brave classmate who saved Ross’s life in a blizzard during a school hike twenty-seven years earlier.

Tuesday, 14 April - I arrived at the Boyd residence just as the sun was setting. Having visited often in the past, I always enjoyed spending an evening there. They were a really good family that would never have existed if Ross had died during that blizzard in the 1980's. I was also quite amused on this visit by the fact that despite having just finished primary school, young Wesley was now almost as tall as his dad. Another half dozen centimetres would do it. And although petit, Angela was certainly growing well for her age. I expected them both to be taller than Ross eventually.

Before dinner, Ross took me into his study for a couple of beers and a brief chat about my visit to the people next door. He told me that both of them had initially been ‘freaked out’ by the idea of Kendal living in my house for up to five months. In reply, I said, Well mate, that’s hardly surprising.

But Ross can be very persuasive. After turning on some of his boyish charm and telling them I had a Queensland state government-issued child contact authority, a ‘blue-card’, their initially-negative reaction had softened to one of ‘maybe’, especially Kendal. His reason, however, was that winter in Melbourne sucked compared to Queensland. No argument from me on that score, but Ross felt there was a lot more to it than that. I guessed it would all come down to whether or not, firstly, they liked me, and, secondly, my own impression of Kendal. His mother, I wasn’t so concerned about. She would be Ross’s problem if I agreed to take the boy.

Sally Boyd was an excellent cook. She had prepared a meal that was both my favourite and Ross’s, vegetarian lasagne. After downing two large helpings, I was ready to meet the neighbours. And that’s exactly what I did at seven thirty when Ross led me onto their front veranda and rang the bell. I felt a strange tenseness as I waited.

MY FIRST MEETING WITH GINA KIRBY

The door was opened by Gina Kirby. She presented as a very slender woman of average height with an air of relaxed confidence and no apparent personal issues with weight. But I suspected this air of confidence hid anxiety. What that anxiety was about, if it existed, I was interested to find out, although I had been well-briefed by Ross. First of all, though, due to limited time, I wanted to begin analysing the whole situation as we entered the house.

Gina already had the electric kettle on in anticipation of our arrival, and escorted us into the lounge room. She told us that Kendal was in his bedroom, probably hiding-out. The last remark was made with a faint note of sarcasm.

While our refreshments were being prepared, I quickly looked around the room. It was neat and tidy, just as Mona had maintained our own home when she was alive. There were landscape pictures on the walls, and old black-and-white or sepia portraits on the mantle. What was immediately noticeable by its absence, though, was a lack of recent family-type colour photographs. By contrast, they were all over the place in Ross’s lounge, and mine.

Our hostess soon had us with a cup of coffee in one hand and a chocolate biscuit in the other. We were ready to get down to business and Ross opened the discussion. He asked her what she really wanted for her son. The gist of her reply was for him to meet a high standard, lose weight and make her proud.

In response to this statement, Ross asked Gina if Kendal had ever been caught stealing by anybody. He hadn’t. So he asked if he had ever been found to be cheating in class exams. Again, he hadn't. Does he roam the streets at night, vandalise property, bully smaller kids in the schoolyard, smoke, get drunk or constantly tell lies? Her answer was no to the first five behaviours, and not sure to the last.

Tactfully, I hadn’t jumped in first to ask those questions as we had only just met. And I knew exactly what Ross’s next question was going to be.

Well, Gina, he said quietly, if the only negative thing he maybe does is tell lies, why aren’t you proud of him?

Gina hesitated for a second, shrugged and replied that she was proud of him, and what she had meant to say was for Kendal to make her more proud of him. Here was one problem already. She admitted to not having said that to her son for many years. There was an apparent lack of communication.

Another problem evident from everything she was saying, without realising it, was that she wanted the weight loss to be more for her benefit than for his. That is, she wanted him to meet a standard appropriate for her as an adult and to boost her pride and self-esteem. Having been verbally and emotionally abused by her late, ex-husband, regaining that pride and self-esteem had become paramount in her personal agenda. Unfortunately, she was trying to do it through Kendal. But Ross had already told me that the boy had his own emotional and physical problems. Thus, he was totally incapable of meeting his mother’s current expectations and frustration had set in, for both parties. Gina had become more and more controlling as time went by, trying to feel good in any given moment, without consideration for Kendal’s sensitivities.

One of her tools to do this was food. She felt gratified seeing him happily tuck into as much as he could eat. Meanwhile, he derived pleasure from the very act of consuming the inappropriate food. This particular aspect of their life together was out of control. In terms of nutrition, they had become each other’s worst enemy. But at least Gina had always insisted Kendal have an annual physical exam by their family doctor. The result each time was that he was in very good health apart from the obesity.

As far as breaking the poor nutrition cycle was concerned, teaching a young person like Kendal what to do correctly, if I could get him motivated, would be far easier than teaching his mother. I suspected that Gina had fallen into a very deep rut from which Ross would have to drag her, but it wasn't going to be easy. She would also require a lot of motivation, preferably as quickly as possible. So I was hoping for early successes with Kendal, if I agreed to take him. For now, I wanted to know if his mother had been thinking of ways to help him.

I asked, Gina, what strategy or plan do you have for Kendal to improve his current situation?

She said to get him on some kind of diet, just as long as he could lose weight. She had totally missed the fact that she was enabling his weight gain by bringing all the wrong foods into their home in the first place. But this would be for Ross to deal with. My concern was the boy. The time had come to be direct. Gina, how do you really feel about Kendal coming to live with me, a stranger, two thousand kilometres away?

She looked down and pulled at her fingers. Like I am failing. Like I’m a bad mum.

I reached over, gently touched her wrist and said, The fact you can say that tells me you’re not failing and you're not a bad mum. You’re just in a bind that’s way over your head, that’s all.

Gina looked up and smiled slightly. It was obvious she appreciated my words of support, and I asked her if she had any questions about life in Hervey Bay if her son came to live with me. That was when I discovered that Ross had already told her a fair bit about me, and my background. Her only questions concerned the sort of accommodation I would be providing, and what high school Kendal would attend.

The matter of accommodation was easily dealt with. He would have his own bedroom at the other end of the house from mine. But as far as his education went, I intended home-schooling him for the two terms minimum that he would be with me.

Gina asked the obvious, Why home-schooling?

My answer was, quite simply, that for a boy with Kendal’s problems, neither of the two state high schools in Hervey Bay would be ‘appropriate environments’. Both schools would expose him to the twin risks of access to the wrong foods and extreme teasing. Either of these risks by themselves could be damaging. Together, they would be just plain toxic, setting the boy up for failure. Kendal needed a controlled, structured environment that was both nutritionally and emotionally safe. The only place that could be guaranteed was in my own home under my constant supervision, especially in the early stages.

In the corner of my eye, I saw Ross nodding slightly in private agreement. Directly before me, Gina was clearly nodding. She had quickly got the message about environmental factors. This was good, as I would have hated to tell her what a poor environment she had provided for so long.

So instead, I asked to meet Kendal for a private chat while she talked some more with Ross. It was important for me to get the boy’s opinion on the present situation and of himself.

When I had finished the last of my coffee and biscuit, Gina led me from the lounge, down a short passage to a closed