Abstract
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.
Published Version
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