Making sense of being fat: A hermeneutic analysis of adults’ explanations for obesity

Abstract

This hermeneutic-phenomenological study of individuals enrolled in a hospital weight management clinic is an account and analysis of the experiences of being overweight, dieting and weight cycling through in-depth life history interviews. Participants explored their earliest recollections involving family attitudes towards food, multiple experiences with dieting and weight cycling and how they explained their weight problems to themselves. Analysis revealed that mealtimes became the arena within which control battles were waged between parent and child; food became associated with control and eating subsequently became a way to gain control over other aspects of life. Eating also became a way to numb the pain associated with child abuse, to substitute for human needs for relationship and belonging and emotional cycles of eating were identified. Insights emergeing from the interview process suggest the value of considering a psychodynamic approach to understanding emotional eating.

Keywords:

• Obesity
• weight cycling
• hermeneutic phenomenology
• emotional aspects of eating
• medical management of weight loss
• psychodynamic
• psychotherapy
• dieting