Three months ago, Kyle Tau had a weight problem.

The Lakeside senior didn't care about vanity pounds or good looks, and he wasn't one of the growing number of high school students in the country dealing with obesity.

He's a wrestler and, no matter what his weight, he's always had to keep an eye on the scale. This year, for the first time, he received some help.

"At the beginning of the year I was 200 pounds because of football. I wanted to cut down to 189 to get in my weight class," Tau said. "I had to miss the first tournament of the year because I wasn't allowed to lose that much weight."

Tau, along with every other high school wrestler in Georgia, has been competing under a new weight management program mandated by the Georgia High School Association. Athletic trainers at Doctors Hospital helped conduct a pilot program the past two years that showed a need for a change.

"The first pilot year a lot of kids were failing. It was around 50 percent," said John Ellis, the trainer who oversaw the weigh-ins. "I think it was an educational failure."

Ellis said the failure rate has decreased now that the wrestlers know the requirements of the new weight management program. They're learning how to lose weight safely.

"They came in around October and November. We did a hydration test to make sure they're hydrated, then we checked their height, weight and body composition," Ellis said. "From that they get the lowest weight they can possibly wrestle at. They can still lose weight, but only in certain increments."

The GHSA's weight management program uses the Optimal Performance Calculator designed by the National Wrestling Coaches Association. The OPC analyzes body fat, weight and hydration data to come up with a minimum weight class a wrestler may compete in. It also sets other weight-loss limitations. No wrestler can have a body fat percentage less than 7 percent. Wrestlers with higher body fat percentages can lose no more than 1.5 percent of their weight each week.

It's a far cry from past years when a weight management program didn't exist. Wrestlers could lose and gain as much weight as they pleased as long as they hit their weight class at the weigh-in before each match. Such freedom was abused and tales of extreme dieting horrors are easy to find among former wrestlers and coaches, even in a state considered well behind others when it comes to wrestling.

Tau, who needed to lose 11 pounds in a week to hit his weigh-in mark for the first tournament of the season, didn't try those extreme weight-loss tactics because the weight management program had already marked him ineligible. Tau instead safely lost the weight over the following weeks to reach his preferred weight class and hasn't had any trouble since.

He won an Area 3-AAAA championship last weekend, along with teammates Matt Kolar and Jacob Smith. Greenbrier's Justin Carter and Tim Stahman also claimed area titles and all five wrestlers will compete as No. 1 seeds this weekend in the GHSA Class AAAA Traditional Wrestling State Tournament in Duluth, Ga.

By the time they compete in first round action today, the weight issue will be little more than an afterthought.

Longtime Lakeside wrestling coach Randy Hill said that's the way it should be.

"I think it's excellent. Every-body's going from the same guidelines now," he said. "Other states have followed it for so long that it's going to even things out."

Georgia is one of the last states to use the OPC. Other states began using it as early as 1999. It's too early to produce complete data showing the program's effectiveness in Georgia, but NWCA Executive Director Mike Moyer said the policies have worked elsewhere.

Moyer said 240,000 middle and high school wrestlers are now enrolled in the weight management program. High school coaches are required to submit weekly reports on an online database with information on weight and match results. Coaches have complained about the extra workload, but Moyer said it's bringing in valuable information.

"We now have assessment data on 240,000 kids in middle school and high school and their weight issues," he said. "We can use this to help make decisions in the future like to decide whether to add or take away weight classes."

It's also serving its primary purpose. In 1999, three college wrestlers died as a result of extreme weight loss. Moyer said the OPC was designed in response to the tragedy.

"It's not a perfect program, but we're certainly moving in the right direction," he said.