Exploring men’s experiences of a weight loss programme

Should we focus beyond

shifting the pounds?

Lorena Lozano SufrateguiLeeds Beckett University

Overview• Obesity discourses• My research findings• Alternative ways of thinking

Obesity discourse

• Obese body = diseased body• Treatment or reform• Top-down solution?

DISCOURSES

how is the ‘fat’ body socially lived and

experienced?

Alternative discourse

The guy who was running the activity just looked at me and

said: ‘sorry mate, you’re probably a bit too fat to be able to do any of these, you won’t be fi enough. And to be honest with

you, I was probably the fittest one there, but because I was so

much bigger than anybody else, I was left out before I even opened

my mouth (Pierce)

FINDINGS

FINDINGSLorena: what do you remember about the first session in this programme?Matt: I think looking around and realising that I wasn’t on my own anymore, there was other guys in the same boat as myself, and by the look of them and by the red faces at the end, I realised that some of them were a lot worse than I was, so I kind of came out and thought: ‘Well, I am not a complete basket case after all, there is hope for me’. And I felt positive. I felt I had done something creative and I had something positive about fixing myself (Matt)

• Health and wellness

• Well-being, happiness and self-fulfilment

• Use PA to help people internalize values

• Personal meaning in being active

An alternative way of thinking…

Inspirational readings…

• Bacon, Linda. Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight. BenBellaBooks, 2010.

• Monaghan, Lee F. Men and the War on Obesity: A Sociological Study. Routledge, 2008.

• Gard, Michael, and Jan Wright. The Obesity Epidemic: Science, Morality and Ideology. Routledge, 2005.

• Provencher, Véronique, Catherine Bégin, Angelo Tremblay, Lyne Mongeau, Louise Corneau, Sylvie Dodin, Sonia Boivin, and Simone Lemieux. "Health-at-Every-Size and Eating Behaviors: 1-Year Follow-up Results of a Size Acceptance Intervention." Journal of the American Dietetic Association 109, no. 11 (2009): 1854-61.

• Hsu, Ya-Ting, Janet Buckworth, Brian C Focht, and Ann A O'Connell. "Feasibility of a Self-Determination Theory-Based Exercise Intervention Promoting Healthy at Every Size with Sedentary Overweight Women: Project Change." Psychology of Sport and Exercise 14, no. 2 (2013): 283-92.

L.Lozano@leedsbeckett.ac.uk

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