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When Kassy was a toddler, her mother Nicole Cummins noticed something different.
“She was always hungry,” Cummins recalled. “Food was the only thing that soothed her. I used to think it was my fault.”
For years, doctors told Nicole that Kassy would “grow into her size.” But the weight gain continued, along with chronic pain, learning difficulties, and a growing sense of isolation.
It wasn’t until Kassy was 13 that she was referred to CHEO’s Centre for Healthy Active Living (CHAL), a clinic that takes a different approach to pediatric obesity. There, Kassy met a team of specialists who didn’t just see her weight — they saw her.
“We’re not here to put kids on diets,” said Dr. Laurie Clark, a CHEO psychologist with CHAL.
“We’re here to help them live healthier, fuller lives. That means addressing mental health, family dynamics, and other physical health conditions, including genetic disorders.”
Clark said the clinic team also helps primary care physicians understand the best way to talk about and treat young patients with obesity.
In Kassy’s case, genetics played a major role. After years of testing, she was diagnosed with a rare genetic condition that affects hunger cues and metabolism.
“Her body thinks it’s starving,” her mom Nicole explained. “She doesn’t know when she’s full.”
With the guidance of Dr. Stasia Hadjiyannakis, Kassy’s diagnosis was a turning point because Kassy and her mom realized, for the first time, that neither of them was to blame.
But the journey wasn’t just about medical answers.
“The team of doctors at CHEO helped me grow up and become a person ... and helped me be happy,” Kassy said.
They listened to Kassy, and she felt like she belonged. She felt empowered.
The team at CHAL worked with Kassy and her family to build a plan that focused on what she could do—not what she couldn’t. She met with a dietitian who made food fun again, and a fitness expert who helped her find joy in movement through yoga and other activities she enjoyed.
“They gave you a little bit of everything, just to be the best you,” Kassy said.
This approach is rooted in a growing recognition that obesity is not a simple matter of “calories in, calories out” or willpower. Clark said work must continue to combat weight bias in health care.
“People assume that if you’re in a larger body, you’re lazy or not trying hard enough. But that’s just not true,” said Clark, whose clinic at CHEO works hard to bust myths around obesity.
Research shows that children with higher body weights often receive less time and attention from health-care providers. They’re more likely to be misdiagnosed, and their symptoms are dismissed, said Clark.
The stigma extends beyond health care, of course, as some people think they know what’s best for a child, even when they don’t know the full story.
CHAL looks past body mass index, or BMI, to evaluate the whole person. The clinic uses the Edmonton Obesity Staging System for Pediatrics, which looks at physical, mental, and social health, not just numbers on a scale, to ensure ongoing care helps kids maintain healthy lives.
Hadjiyannakishas authored a paper that challenged the reliance on BMI alone to assess obesity severity in children. She also helped write new national guidelines, released in spring 2025, to help treat and care for children and youth living with obesity to improve their quality of life.
The hope is these new guidelines create a more consistent approach across Canada to treating childhood obesity.
Kassy, meanwhile, is thriving. She’s entering her second year of college, studying social service work, and she has found a community of friends who accept her for who she is.
“She’s been through so much,” her mom said. “But she’s strong. She’s beautiful. And she’s finally starting to believe that, too.”
Kassy has also become an advocate, sharing her story through various avenues such as Obesity Canada to help others understand that obesity is complex — and compassion matters.
“Honestly, it’s been empowering for me to do that work,” she said.
It’s all part of her journey to change how she sees herself — a journey that truly began at CHEO — as she pursues what she calls her “goal of overall happiness.”