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Ryan Craig thinks he might have the answer to childhood and teen obesity - and it has nothing to do with taking on fast-food companies or getting soft-drink machines out of school cafeterias.

Toronto-born Mr. Craig is a founder of the Academy of the Sierras, which runs two boarding schools in California and North Carolina for overweight and obese teens, along with summer camps. There are plans for a school in British Columbia by 2009.

Mr. Craig and his partners have written a book, The Sierras Weight-Loss Solution For Teens and Kids , on shelves this month. At $22 (Canadian), it's a bargain compared to a month at one of Mr. Craig's boarding schools, which rings in at $5,900 (U.S.).

Mr. Craig, who lives in California, claims his program of diet, exercise and behavioural change works. We asked him how.

To what degree is the success of your school due to kids being away from home, where the fridge is stocked with bad food?

Parents are more vigilant about the safety of their children. But as a result, we have less unstructured play and activity needs to be scheduled, which results in less activity for kids. ... And it means parents are tearing their hair out picking up and dropping off kids and often don't have time to cook dinner and are picking up from the drive-through. It can be a double whammy.

You're not suggesting they're off the hook, are you?

No. When you get a child who is 100 pounds overweight at the age of 15, clearly something is going on in the family. Often, it's the child reacting to some form of trauma or abuse. It could be a separation or divorce. And our parents have a hard time setting limits on their children.

What style of diet works for kids?

The main principle is cut out the fat. Stay as low as you can and in no case go over 20 fat grams. ... You're cutting out fast food, highly prepared food. ... And then, don't drink your calories.

So instead of banning cola at schools, teach kids not to drink it?

Yes - skim milk is the only beverage we allow that has any calories. Water. Diet soda's great.

But what about the evils of fake sugar? You recommend Splenda in a number of recipes.

If kids want to have five diet Cokes a day, fine. ... Once they're back at a healthy weight, let's worry about tests that show rats bathed in aspartame get cancer after 20 years. It's very much the medical model of triage.

I see white breads and pasta in there too

We have parents who come in who are trying to push an organic, vegetarian diet on their kids. ... And we say, "You have as much chance of getting your child to adopt that as a snowball's chance in hell." So we produced a diet with burgers and pizzas and burritos and chicken fingers - prepared very differently and in different portion sizes. Dessert. It needs to be food that they will enjoy.

What about nutrients that growing kids need? Is skim milk enough calcium?

All our kids take calcium supplements and a daily vitamin. The American Academy of Pediatrics is recommending that rather than giving your child a glass of juice, [give] a diet soda and a multivitamin.

On the exercise front, you recommend walking. Is that too easy?

It's 10,000 steps a day - measured by a pedometer. ... It can be an hour's walk in the morning before school. Or a treadmill in front of the TV.

Live discussion

Got a question for Ryan Craig? Click here to ask him. Mr. Craig will be online today at 1 p.m. EST to answer reader questions.