One Day at a Time

School of Last Resort

In this video and narrated gallery, students who attend campuses of a boarding academy for overweight kids describe their fight to lose weight.

10 p.m. LIGHTS OUT

Tracy Ostrofsky sits on the dusty floor of her dorm room, which is littered with clothes, shoes and papers. She tosses athletic clothing and gear into a large duffel bag, hurriedly packing for a weekend caving trip that will depart early the next morning.

Much of what she is taking arrived that day in a package sent by her mother, opened, as are all packages, in the presence of a staff member who inspected it for contraband food or gum.

Talk soon shifts to a favorite topic at Wellspring: imagining what people will say when slimmed-down students return home.

In Ostrofsky's case, the reaction may be less dramatic than most. A skilled lacrosse player, she arrived barely 30 pounds overweight and looks little more than chubby. At 16, she is a veteran of summer fat camps, diets and personal trainers. She keenly feels the contrast with her older sisters, identical twins and high school co-valedictorians who have always been thin. Tracy could never keep the weight she lost off for long.

The daughter of a Houston Internet entrepreneur, she arrived in February, after boys in her high school computer class pulled up a photograph of her at a cotillion dance, looking stunning, but not skinny, in a turquoise dress.

"I thought I looked amazing, but people were laughing at me," said Tracy, who burst into tears in class. "It was a turning point. I had to get out of there."

Like many of her classmates, Tracy kept her destination secret, saying only that her parents were sending her to boarding school out of state. "They'll find out where I was when I get back," she said.

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