People often ask Wellspring Academy founder Ryan Craig if he used to be a fat kid. He wasn't. Nor does he have an overweight child or parents.
Still, Mr. Craig, a very mild-mannered Canadian and Yale law graduate, has all the same devoted himself to creating a slew of summer camps, community programs and boarding schools to help heavy children slim down.
“There is no personal connection for me,” he says. “Just a clear need that needs to be addressed.”
In the corner office at Wellspring in Reedley, Calif., wearing wire-frame glasses, khaki slacks and a button-down shirt, Mr. Craig, 36, looks more young minister than hungry entrepreneur. But ambition fuels his crusade to spread the Wellspring way.
Five years ago, Mr. Craig, who grew up in North Toronto, was a successful money-market manager in Manhattan. He also sat on the board of the for-profit Aspen Education Group, the largest U.S. provider of programs for kids with drug and behavioural problems. He visited Aspen programs in Utah and North Carolina, “always rural locations in canyons, deserts, and mountains. … It struck me that this could apply to other types of programs.”
After his wife, then a journalist, wrote a Newsweek feature on childhood obesity, he began cold-calling experts in 2003.
“I spoke to 50 researchers at top schools,” said Mr. Craig, now based in Los Angeles. “I asked them about the concept of a boarding school, and they said, ‘Wow!' Several signed on to a nascent advisory board.”
One of its early members was Daniel Kirschenbaum, a psychologist at Northwestern University who had been writing books on children and weight loss since 1987. The 57-year-old author also ran the Centre for Behavioural Medicine and Sports Psychology in Chicago and an eating disorders clinic at Northwestern Medical School.
“Craig needed to find someone, and he found me,” Dr. Kirschenbaum said, adding that there wasn't much out there for kids, “just Mom and Pop things without a lot of science behind them.”
Dr. Kirschenbaum, eventually left the board to become Wellspring's clinical director, designing its program based on his research. Aspen invested more than $6 million (U.S.) in the venture, which began with two summer camps in 2004.
“We expected 15 to 25 kids, and we had three times that number,” recalls Mr. Craig, who has a three-year-old son. “This is by far the most rewarding thing I've ever done. … To change one life is amazing. To be able to change thousands ...”
Wellspring, now owned by the CRC Health Group, has two boarding schools, four community programs and 14 summer camps in the U.S. and another in Britain, which cost $5,950 for a four-week stay and $8,000 for eight weeks.
A camp is to open outside Vancouver next summer.
