Weight stigma, fat pedagogy and rediscovering the pleasures of movement: experiencing physical activity and fatness in a public health weight management programme

ABSTRACT

Physical activity is typically part of public health weight management programmes in the UK, but despite critical debate about obesity science and discourse, fatness and physical activity, the focus remains on weight loss, reinforcing weight bias and weight stigma in physical activity promotion. This public health policy and practice approach ignores concerns about the ineffectiveness of weight-centric programmes and the evidence that physical activity may provide health benefits and protect individuals from non-communicable diseases, independent of weight loss as well as providing opportunity for a meaningful embodied experience. Little is known about the physical activity experiences of those enrolled on public health weight management programmes and this study provides an original insight into such experiences with significant public health policy and practice implications. In-depth qualitative interviews with ten people, categorised as obese or overweight and taking part in a local authority weight loss programme were used to explore people's experience of reintroducing physical activity into their lives through the programme. We found that when physical activity is delivered in a way that empowers those categorised as obese and overweight to overcome their fears of exercise, it is possible for people to (re)discover the pleasure in the moving fat body. We argue that public health services for those identified as obese and overweight need to draw on public pedagogy approaches by creating shared learning spaces for ethical and respectful knowledge exchange about physical activity, health and wellbeing as opposed to a stigmatising weight-centric ideal of weight management service delivery.

KEYWORDS:

• Public health
• weight-stigma
• fat pedagogy
• weight management
• overweight
• obesity
• physical activity

Acknowledgments

We are grateful for the support and help of the expert public health manager and dieticians leading the weight loss service who introduced us to the participants and allowed us to review their programme. Thanks also go to the participants for sharing their experiences. We are grateful for the expert comments from anonymous reviewers on an earlier draft of this paper. Their feedback has advanced our thinking and strengthened our analysis throughout.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The project was supported by funding from Sport England’s Get Healthy, Get Active for the Health and Sport Engagement Project grant number URN 2012021352.

Notes on contributors

Paula Wittels

Paula Wittels MA, MSc is a Doctoral Researcher in the College of Health and Life Sciences at Brunel University London, UK. Her research is on lifestyle behaviours, diet and exercise, in relation to health. She is particularly interested in the impact of socioeconomic status and motherhood and the role and reach of public health interventions in this group.

Louise Mansfield

Louise Mansfield, PhD, is Professor in Sport, Health and Social Science and Research Lead for Welfare, Health and Wellbeing at Brunel University London, UK. Her research focuses on the relationship between sport, physical activity and public health. She is interested in partnership and community approaches to physical activity engagement and issues of health, wellbeing, inequality and diversity. Louise has led research projects for the Department of Health, Youth Sport Trust, Sport Scotland, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Medical Research Council, Macmillan Cancer Support, Public Health England and Sport England. She sits on the editorial boards for Leisure Studies, Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health and the International Review for the Sociology of Sport.