Abstract
Based in narrative phenomenology, this article describes an example of how lived time, self and bodily engagement with the social world intertwine, and how our sense of self develops. We explore this through the life story of a woman who lost weight through surgery in the 1970 s and has fought against her own body, food and eating ever since. Our narrative analysis of interviews, reflective notes and email correspondence disentangled two storylines illuminating paradoxes within this long-term weight loss process. Thea’s Medical Weight Narrative: From Severely Obese Child to Healthy Adult is her story in context of medicine and obesity treatment and expresses success and control. Thea’s Story: The Narrative of Fighting Weight is the experiential story, including concrete examples and quotes, highlighting bodily struggles and the inescapable ambiguity of being and having one’s body. The two storylines coexist and illuminate paradoxes within the weight loss surgery narrative, connected to meaningful life events and experiences, eating practices and relationships with important others. Surgery was experienced as lifesaving, yet the surgical transformation did not suffice, because it did not influence appetite or, desire for food in the long run. In the medical narrative of transforming the body by repair, a problematic relationship with food did not fit into the plot.
Highlights
“I had weight loss surgery in 1975, and I never hear anything about how the people who had surgery in the 70ties and 80ties are doing
Fortyfive years after weight loss surgery (WLS) she shared her life story revolving around body weight
To understand core meanings of selfhood, body and change, we explore her rich narrative account of struggling with her body weight, feelings and eating for a lifetime
Summary
“I had weight loss surgery in 1975, and I never hear anything about how the people who had surgery in the 70ties and 80ties are doing. Is told from the first-person perspective, and always situated within a cultural context of time and place, and narratives shaped by the medical culture tend to weave into the individual person’s particular narrative. The body is a dimension of oneself, and the imaginative variations around the body are variations on the self This existential underpinning of bodily being in the world appears to follow the same line of thought as Merleau-Ponty who connected sedimentation to embodied experience, and its potential power to effect, restrict or release our bodily becoming (1945/2012). Despite the risk of weight regain or side effects following surgery, for people of size, surgical treatment remains an opportunity to change their bodies and lives via weight loss, offering more optimistic future prospects on health and longevity. In the becoming of, being and combating a large body, this tension seems like a kernel as a driving force throughout a lifespan in persons’ lived experiences after WLS
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