Wellspring Academy is unlike any other school in the United States. It's a boarding school for overweight and obese teens, that features weight loss as it's core curriculum alongside reading, writing and arithmetic.
For many students, attending the academy is a last resort -- and sometimes a life-saving one. When 17-year-old Jenna Chrisman enrolled in the school, she was 272 pounds and already diabetic. Simply walking is a struggle for her, and she said she was relentlessly teased at her old school where her classmates called her a "manatee and hippo."
"I was afraid I was going to die," she said.
Childhood obesity has tripled over the past 30 years and today, nearly one in every three school-age kids is overweight or obese, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. But Wellspring believes the solution to the alarming obesity epidemic lies as much in kids' minds as in their metabolism.
In addition to math, history and other subjects, Wellspring's curriculum includes the science of weight loss, broken down across nutrition, physiology and psychology. Students undergo an intense behavior modification through the use of food diaries combined with cognitive therapy, both in a group setting and one-on-one.
The school has campuses in North Carolina and California and recommends students attend at a minimum a four-month semester, but officials prefer students enroll for nine months, or a full school year. The 40 or so students who attend Wellspring range in age from 11 to 18, and some are tipping the scale at 400 pounds.
When Michael Schlesinger, 16, arrived at Wellspring nine months ago he weighed 428 pounds and said he had trouble wrapping a seatbelt around his waist.
"When I realized I couldn't really do anything, like I would get out of breath walking down the block, just take my dog up and down the street, and it came to the point where I had enough," he said.
Schlesinger said his first week at Wellspring felt like torture. He was plagued by shin splints, which made it hurt to walk, but he said he lost 15 pounds in his first week, and seven pounds the next. Over the course of nine months, Schlesinger managed to lose 160 pounds.
PHOTOS: Michael Schlesinger's Dramatic Weight-Loss Transformation
