As the basket ball team made the four-hour drive to the San Luis Obispo basketball tournament (the biggest tournament of 8th grade), Coach Whitmore entertained us by predicting who we would all be when we grew up:

"Brent, you’re six foot two inches now, but by the time you finish college you’ll be six foot ten and fighting to make it in the NBA. Your wife will also be six foot ten and play basket ball better than you. Your kids will be over eight feet tall."

Coach Whitmore was cool. He’d played in college with some guys that went on to play professionally; he was big and strong and wore a gold neck lace that dangled on his dark hairy chest—a chest frequently visible; the top two but tons of his shirt were usually left undone. There was a rumor he was sleeping with the new eighth grade teacher, Miss Hackett. She was hot and some times wore a mini skirt.

"Saxen, if your church ever lets you play on Fri day nights, you’ll get into foot ball and go on to play in the pros as a 300-pound offensive line man. If that doesn’t happen, you’ll open a chain of restaurants and literally be huge as a famous chef. You’ll always have plenty to eat."

Everyone laughed. I fought to clear the unhappy look from my red-hot face. Thank God the light was beginning to dim. I forced a smile, silently bobbing my head to indicate that I, too, thought it was funny.

"Now Phil, you’ll…"

Two years later, Coach’s prediction was still tattooed in my mind. I knew what Coach was saying. When I thought about the kids in my eighth grade class, I could tell which ones were going to be fat. Not just the ones who already were fat, but the ones with the full cheeks and the soft bodies. I was one of those guys—I’d had it demonstrated to me very clearly a year and a half previously.

Excerpt from The Good Eater: The True Story of One Man's Struggle with Binge Eating Disorder by Ron Saxen