How Katherine lost a person, and gained a life

August 21, 2005
Having shed 65 kilos Katherine Baxter wants to lose a further 10.


Katherine Baxter weighed 90 kilos in year 8, changed schools to escape the bullying about her size and had ballooned to 150 kilos by the age of 21. Surgery helped her shed the weight, and life as a fat person. Peter Wilmoth reports.

Since she was very young, Katherine Baxter was "one of those chubby children". In grade 6, aged 11, she would go with a friend to a milk bar and eat a packet of Tim Tam biscuits. Today it's called binge eating, but back then Katherine thought nothing of it. "There was no real reason behind it," she says now. "At that age you don't think about things too much."

At school she was made aware of her weight. She can't recall details except that the teasing was mostly by boys. "A lot of memories have been forgotten, which may be deliberate," she says. "It became part of my life — going to school and being picked on for being fat. One boy came up and said 'You're fat.' I thought 'Your mum's fat, what are you talking about?' "

The teasing meant Katherine suffered "this enormous low self-esteem". She was an extroverted child and "didn't shut off the world". What she did, though, was eat more comfort food. "Throughout my childhood my grandmother would give me chocolates to make me feel better if I wasn't feeling well or if I was hurt," she says. "That was when my dependence on comfort food started."

Her family, she says, were great food lovers. "We socialised a lot around food. My parents had a catering company and were good cooks — and they always over-catered. Parents back then weren't as aware of the long-term effects of being overweight. I'm a very strong person, very strong-willed and it would have taken an enormous amount of effort to change the pattern of my behaviour."

By year 7, aged 13, Katherine weighed 75 kilos. She was now suffering from obesity. In year 8 she was 90 kilos. Her body shape was in stark contrast to that of her sister Elisabeth, five years younger and slim. As a young girl, Katherine didn't really notice the difference because "she was so much younger and as a child you expect younger ones to be smaller than you".

But as she moved into secondary school, Katherine did start to notice. "She can eat, eat, eat and never put on weight," she says of her sister. "We have different constitutions. She got the good genes, that's how I see it."

At school, Katherine was now being ostracised for her size. Sport was a focus at her school. Katherine played tennis, basketball and did PE. She was quite co-ordinated but her body size discouraged her from getting involved. "The reason I didn't play was because of the embarrassment — what I must look like doing it."

Before she had lap band surgery Katherine weighed 150 kilos

Before she had lap band surgery Katherine weighed 150 kilos

There was one incident she will not forget. "As a warm-up for a PE class one day everyone had to run a lap of the oval. The PE teacher said whoever came last had to do it again. I came last. Instead of rewarding the unfittest person for doing it, there was a punishment. The rest of the class had to wait while I did the lap. I was humiliated, and that created worse problems."

The teasing and the comments aimed at her didn't let up. A group of boys in her class worked to ensure potential friends were kept away. "They isolated me from the rest of the class," she says. "I wasn't able to form a real friendship with any of the girls in the class because of the influence of the boys. They were bullies."

She spoke to the school counsellor about it, but nothing really changed. "The mentality of the school was if you didn't fit the mould, you weren't welcomed," she says.

On sports day Katherine often pretended to be sick "so I didn't have to face that humiliation".

"Mum would say 'If you go, I will write you a note so you don't have to do it.' Mum went into bat so many times, to PE teachers, the principal. She was really worried about me. At times I wondered whether she wished she had an easier child."

Katherine had a good friend at school who didn't have it easy either. "She was also teased. She was Asian and bright. She was teased because she was dorky, unfit and a brain. So we hung around together and we were an easy target."

To the bullies in her class, that was certainly true. One day at school the group of boys who'd been making her unhappy threw mouldy bits of fruit at her, calling out 'You're a loser'. "I ended up running away," she says. "Now I would have picked it up and thrown it back."

After the incident the school introduced a harassment policy, but it didn't stop Katherine being taunted. The fruit-throwing incident was the turning point for her. On the eve of the year 9 school camp, which was to involve rock climbing and abseiling, Katherine ran away from home and spent two nights at a friend's house because the boys who bullied her were also going on the camp.

In consultation with her parents, she decided to leave the school halfway through year 9, and go to a single-sex school. "That was the best thing I could have done."

She was happier, but she was making no progress in losing weight. She had tried all sorts of diets — Weight Watchers, a soup diet, cutting out certain food groups. "I used food as a comfort. If I went for a walk I'd think 'I've done something good so I'll reward myself with a chocolate bar'."

By year 12, Katherine's weight reached 135 kilos. And she now had a serious problem. Three years after leaving school, aged 21, Katherine was the heaviest she'd been: 150 kilos. Her life was dominated by being obese.

"It was like being disabled. You are not able to do what you want to do."

When she walked around shopping centres with her friends she'd get tired, light-headed and had sore feet. Her self-esteem was not helped by her attempts to find clothes the right size. "Shopping for clothes was a nightmare for me," she says. "At times like that, when I couldn't find something that fitted, I felt overweight and disgusting." She found part-time work during university working in a shop at Chadstone that sold large women's fashion. She didn't think much about her life ahead because her optimism had been dampened by the disease. "I didn't want to know what my future was going to be like," she says.

Her father one day mentioned that losing weight would make it easier to get a job. "Because of the first impression," she says. "I agreed with him."

A family friend had had lap-band surgery, whereby a band is placed around the top of the stomach to limit food intake. Her friend had lost 40 kilos. Katherine wondered whether this procedure could work for her.

"At the time I was feeling really scared, thinking 'I can't be that bad to need this drastic measure'."

Katherine attended an information session on lap-band surgery and, with the support and encouragement of her family and friends, in January last year she went ahead with the operation.

For two weeks she was on a liquid diet and, in that time, lost 15 kilos. The procedure had successfully suppressed her appetite. "I was very disciplined, so the moment I felt full I stopped eating."

Her diet changed dramatically. For the first few months she ate 10 times less than she had before the surgery. Now she is eating one quarter of what she used to.

Because her stomach will allow her to eat only a certain amount, Katherine is careful to ensure she consumes foods that provide sufficient nutrition. "Initially I went through a stage of thinking 'What the hell have I done?' It was hard socially. You'd go to someone's house for dinner and it was difficult to control what and how much you're eating. At restaurants I get questioned by waiters whether I enjoyed the food because I hadn't touched it."

Eighteen months after the surgery, Katherine had lost 65 kilos. She now weighs 85 kilos and is, to those who knew her before, unrecognisable. She recently attended her high school reunion. "I was nervous because I'd changed a lot. People were in shock. My principal didn't recognise me. I had to say my full name before she did."

The night before our interview Katherine, 22, saw some family friends she hadn't seen since the operation. "My sister and I came over to the group. Our friend said hello to Elisabeth and to me and didn't say my name. Someone said 'You know Katherine.' She didn't recognise me at all. It was great."

Katherine says that since losing the weight her life had changed. "I have a much better social life, I'm much more positive, much more optimistic."

After leaving school, Katherine studied arts at Monash University and travelled around Europe. She lived in Germany for nearly a year. Last year she started working in a large organisation in the CBD.

In her spare time, she does classical singing, goes to bars, sees films and bands and often heads down the coast to her parent's place on the Mornington Peninsula.

The main difference post-operation is that she goes out to clubs and dances every week, whereas before she did it "once in the blue moon". She is much more physically active now, playing golf and going to the gym. She plans to shed another 10 kilos. "The last ones are the hardest to lose," she says.

Her weight loss has transformed the way she thinks of herself. "I forget that person that I was. It's almost like I'm a different person. I don't think like that person anymore. The way I think now is more positive. I used to be very negative and depressed about everything from relationships to food. It's all different now.

"I used to believe that a certain standard was good enough for me. Now I'm much stronger about what I will and will not put up with. I always used to think I wasn't good enough and now I think I am good enough."
