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Family, work and social environment
The social environment includes relationships with family, friends, peers, co-workers and others. To some extent, all these interactions have a 'spill over' effect on the...
Everyone has their own reason for wanting to lose weight. Among the people we spoke to, health featured high on the list of reasons to lose weight. For some, receiving a diagnosis or a conversation with their healthcare professional had been the ‘wake-up call’ that had galvanised them into action.
Kate was shocked when the doctor told her she needed to be on statins: ‘So I said, ‘Is there any other way that I don’t have to be on statins?’ And it was suggested – and I grabbed this – that I lose some weight to see what would happen first. And so that was a huge incentive for me, absolutely massive because I don’t want to be taking statins every day’. David said he had felt frightened when his diabetes nurse told him what could happen if his diabetes was not controlled. He decided he would try to lose weight.
Being overweight increases the risk of complications during surgery. Those who needed surgery had often been told they needed to lose weight before having the operation. Stuart said, ‘I felt I needed to lose them kilos I didn’t want to go into the operation being obese and die on the operating theatre’. For Maxine Mary, a forthcoming knee operation was her motivation. Health-related reasons for wanting to lose weight included wanting to relieve existing problems or help prevent further medical intervention. For example, Meeka, who had a heart attack at fifty-five and already had a stent, did not want to end up in hospital again. John Y hoped that losing weight would reduce his back pain. Jim wanted to be a ‘good patient’ and had been told his medication would be more effective if he weighed less. Alan, however, was doubtful whether losing weight would improve the management of his heart condition and type 2 diabetes, saying that both were already well controlled with medication. Janet who has type 2 diabetes had gastric band surgery to improve her health. She said her weight had been piling up and she couldn’t control it.‘I decided that at the age of forty-nine that I had to something about this, not to make me look any different just to, you know, as a health precaution, I knew that I needed to do something. I’d got to that stage where this is just ridiculous. So, we decided that I would go and have this gastric band fitted which I did.”
Sometimes, people were concerned with how their weight would affect their quality of life as they got older. Sue X decided to lose weight after turning sixty. She said, ‘I was thinking, I don’t want to be old and creaking and having to use a stick to walk or needing assistance to get onto a bus or anything like that, and really that, that’s what kick started me into then looking to how I was going to lose weight’. Zaida saw keeping fit and healthy as she got older as crucial to keeping her independence and ability to care for herself, as well as enjoying her social life. People like Meeka, Sue X, Rosemary, Joan and others have lost weight and have seen an improvement of their chronic conditions. The thought of ‘slipping back’ and putting on weight scares them. As Meeka says, ‘we are on a mission’. Some people were motivated to lose weight when they approached the age at which a parent had died – heart disease runs in Meeka’s family and none of her relatives have lived beyond 70 years. Paul Y said he didn’t want to die at sixty-four, like his dad, and that was a good motivation to lose weight. Hilary, whose mother had a heart condition and passed away aged 61, said she wanted to be around to have a full life. Health was not always the only reason why people wanted to lose weight. Keeping fit, having more energy and being able to do more things was another motivating force. For example, Zaida wanted to lose weight to be able to play tennis better, an activity she greatly enjoyed. Shirley said her daughter was getting married and she wanted to look good in the photos, while Rosemary was keen to lose weight so that she could look good on holiday in her bikini. Although the holiday was the immediate prompt, she said she also had underlying health motivations, such as avoiding diabetes and looking after her joints. On reflection, Shirley questioned the wisdom of short-term goals to motivate weight loss and said, ‘Am I just going to lose weight for that and then what happens after that? But really the foremost should be health’.Fitting into clothes and being able to wear nice clothes was part of the reason why some people wanted to lose weight. For Christine, not having well-fitting clothes was eroding her self-confidence. She wanted to lose weight so that her clothes would fit better and she would then feel better in herself. Myra said that since having a hip operation, she had been living in tracksuit bottoms. Her short-term goal was to lose weight so that she could get back into her summer trousers and feel better about herself. Alan said he was keen not to have to buy a new wardrobe, which would be expensive, if he continued to gain weight. June X explained what hard work shopping for shoes and clothes could be when overweight.
Not wanting to appear fat, to be described as fat or to be judged for being fat were other motivations for people to lose weight. June wanted to lose weight because she was looking for a job: ‘I do think presentation is important and I do think people make value judgements about people that are overweight, so that inhibits my confidence then in job seeking’. Finding social acceptance mattered, for example Lesley wanted people to think she was looking after herself rather than seeing her as an overweight person who wasn’t trying. Angela said she had dieted at various points in her life ‘for people to like me’ and to ‘get acceptance from everybody’. While health, and improved appearance, both clearly mattered to the people we talked to, there was rarely a single reason for wanting to lose weight. People felt more accepted in society when they were in control of their weight.. Several commented that when they lost weight people noticed and told them they were looking ‘good’. No-one said that they were losing weight for someone else’s sake, but families and relationships were clearly a factor. For example, Ellie said that she wanted to be around to see her grandson grow up and hoped that losing weight would improve her long term health. Being in control of weight, looking and feeling good came to be closely linked in some people’s minds.The social environment includes relationships with family, friends, peers, co-workers and others. To some extent, all these interactions have a 'spill over' effect on the...
Losing weight is rarely easy, but many things can help. We spoke to people about what had worked for them. Having the right mind-set Being...