‘There were other guys in the same boat as myself’: the role of homosocial environments in sustaining men’s engagement in health interventions

ABSTRACT

Current approaches to obesity recommend weight control strategies that focus on energy-restricted diets and increased physical activity. However, these approaches meet with (at best) limited success despite being central to evidence, policy and practice. There is apparently more to weight loss, including potentially important psychosocial processes that affect behaviour change. Using an ethnographic and narrative approach, this study explored the psychosocial processes experienced by those attending a men-only, community-based weight management intervention. Methods of data collection included semi-structured interviews and participant observation, and thematic analysis was used to analyse and interpret the data collected. Analysis and interpretation suggests that personally meaningful psychosocial processes in participants’ accounts comprised three themes, including (1) ‘Everybody is in the same boat’: A shared safe place; (2) ‘It’s a nudge in the right direction’: Broadening horizons and a push forward; and (3) ‘You need to want to change’: Taking control. This paper concludes with some implications for future practice and research in the area of weight loss and health promotion.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnography
• men’s health
• hard-to-reach
• narrative
• weight loss

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank all the participants who kindly volunteered to participate in this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lorena Lozano-Sufrategui

Lorena Lozano-Sufrategui’s expertise is on the promotion of physical activity and health for hard-to-reach populations. Specifically, Lorena’s research interests include the use of qualitative methodologies to explore how to promote health in hard-to-reach groups, such as overweight or obese men. Her research has received media attention and has contributed to the development of more tailored physical activity interventions for hard-to-reach men in the north-west of England.

Andy Pringle

Andy Pringle is a Reader in Physical Activity and Public Health and is the Research and Enterprise Lead for Physical Activity. He performs teaching and research into the effectiveness of physical activity and health interventions with adults and older adults. Andy is interested in how interventions are planned and implemented so they impact on effectiveness. He is especially interested in Intervention Mapping and the Evaluation of physical activity interventions, including those aimed at hard-to-engage groups and in football settings.

Jim McKenna

Jim McKenna has an extensive portfolio of peer-reviewed publications and grants covering interventions and community evaluations, spanning schools through to work places and working with older adults. He is also widely acknowledged for the quality of both his reviewing of research papers and for his teaching, having recently received awards for each. Jim is on the executive board of two journals and numerous prestigious grant awarding bodies.

David Carless

David Carless’s current role is conducting and disseminating research alongside postgraduate teaching and supervision. As a Professor in Narrative Psychology, David uses stories to understand human experience and behaviour. A specialist in qualitative research, David is one of a growing number of academics pioneering storytelling, autoethnographic, song writing, poetic and performance methodologies. He has contributed to methodological innovation, not only in sport and physical activity, but also in interdisciplinary contexts that include education, counselling and psychotherapy, and health.