An exploration of the lived experience of personal growth in individuals who have experienced weight loss during a structured weight loss programme: An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA)

By Kirsty Baxter - Online MSc - Advanced Nutrition

Abstract

The aim of this research is to explore the phenomenon of personal growth, to capture and derive meaning the participants and the researcher make of the lived experience and the conditions under which it can manifest as a phenomenon during weight loss.

While weight loss is a personal endeavor it is also the epicenter of my practice. To this end my research is looking to explore self-awareness through the phenomenon of personal growth in relation to weight loss behavior to further an understanding of the weight loss experience. The global prevalence of obesity, continues to highlight the need to understand more about the process to weight-loss (Hindle and Carpenter, 2011). With the Covid-19 pandemic a new spotlight has been focused on obesity as an unrelated risk factor for critical illness from Covid-19 (OpenSAFELY Collaborative, 2020; Tan, He and MacGregor, 2020) where related aspects of social disruption have challenged healthy eating (Smirmaul et al., 2020). Whereas the prevalence of unhealthy diets within the global population is high (World Health Organisation, 2016), recent weight loss literature has focused on aspects of behavioural change in individuals to facilitate weight-loss (Teixeira et al. 2012). In seeking to understand a persons’ experiences and then interpret them into meaningful approaches to initiate change, my research may hold significance in the broader context of nutritional therapy, and add to the body of literature on weight loss in this area.