Obese persons’ physical activity experiences and motivations across weight changes: a qualitative exploratory study

This ethnographic study explored the physical activity experiences of self-identified obese and formerly obese persons. Participants engaged in physical activity to protect their future health, for the sake of pleasure, and because they felt pressured to pursue health and weight aims in a stigmatizing environment. These priorities shifted over time, weight fluctuations, and activity engagement, but they remained in some iteration as the primary activity-related foci of most participants.

Obese persons’ concerns with physical functioning have been found in other studies [35–37]. Older obese African-American women, much like some participants in the present study, were more concerned with maintaining functional independence via physical activity, rather than solely weight-based goals [35]. Low income, obese mothers in Michigan expressed related priorities. Similar to participants in the present study, these mothers described health behavior motivators including concerns regarding future health issues, physical limitations, and an inability to interact with children [36]. Post-bariatric surgery patients also highlighted that the benefits of physical activity included a higher level of functioning that facilitated familial interactions [38]. While awaiting bariatric surgery, however, patients discussed how they needed to lose weight in order to engage in further physical activity [37]. Given high rates of weight loss recidivism [23] and still limited capacity for bariatric surgery, this is unfortunate; physical activity may be protective of functional status, even in the presence of weight gain [21]. Greater health promotion efforts encouraging physical fitness’s benefits on functioning, even irrespective of weight changes, may align with obese individuals’ own concerns and have profoundly beneficial wellness benefits.

Participants experienced a significant amount of stigma, and this affected their fitness identities and pursuits. This is similar to other studies, in which obese individuals felt judged for their sizes in activity contexts and this could de-incentivize health behaviors [36, 37]. Derogatory treatment and histories of disordered eating left some participants unwilling to pursue weight loss per se. By enhancing their fitness, speaking to these pursuits, and highlighting the injustice of obesity stigma, participants were able to protect their identities and unsettle some of the stigma directed upon them. Furthermore by focusing on fitness over weight loss, participants could work to protect their future functional capacity, derive pleasure from activity, and adhere to perfomative pressures, without feeling hopeless concerning static, cycling, or escalating weight.

Participants described enjoyment in physical activity that was not necessarily contingent on weight loss, regardless of whether their fitness endeavors were ultimately intended to achieve this end. Engagement and achievement in exercise may serve as its own motivator for ongoing activity [39]. Among adolescents, for example, personal fulfillment was the only independent motivator of activity, and, in fact, weight-based motivation was negatively associated with physical activity [40]. The pleasure-based activity motivations of participants in the present study strengthens the appeal for a greater focus on affect in body and physical activity related research [41, 42] and echoes findings from other studies on activity among obese persons [37, 38]. For some previously inactive participants in the present study, whole social relations, identities, and communities could emerge from physical activity.

The evident pleasure in activity demonstrated by participants reinforces the findings of other authors that athletic identities and material fatness are not mutually exclusive. Provided the opportunity, activity can be mastered and pleasurable regardless of size and despite previous stigmatization, as long as individual preferences concerning activity are taken into account, activities are appropriate, and environments are inviting [10, 12–15, 37, 43]. One aspect of making activity venues safe for obese participants frequently reiterated by participants in this, and other studies, is increasing bodily diversity in terms of gender, size, age, and ability [17, 37, 38, 44].

For some participants, pleasure related to physical activity was directly tied to making and recording progress. Heyes discusses the potentially enabling factors that may accrue from dieting in a commercial weight loss group [45]. The group offered a socially-approved and supportive venue in which women could be preoccupied with better knowing and enhancing themselves, even while trying to ‘correct’ non-normative bodies [45]. Many participants in the present study referenced the value of goal setting, rewards, and social supports as sources of motivation for activity.

Some participants expressed concerns that a focus on self-monitoring was dangerous to their overall wellbeing, based on prior disordered eating experiences. These participants struggled to balance pressures to be active, the pleasure they derived from activity and measuring their progress, and the worry this would lead to pathological behaviors. Similarly, patients waiting for bariatric surgery similarly asserted an” all or nothing approach” to physical activity and a need to meet potentially unrealistic standards of social contacts [37]. Overwhelming expectations and goals may ultimately discourage activity among obese persons. When weight goals are not met for overweight or obese women, despite beliefs in other benefits of physical activity, this can de-motivate exercise behaviors [17].

Overall, participants’ experiences of activity-derived pleasure were multidimensional, varied, and social. Innate experiences of enjoyment were always in danger of being overshadowed by the fear that their efforts were insufficient to achieve ‘wellbeing’ ([46]:23). This could lead to altered, ceased, or disordered activity patterns. That some participants were able to focus on overarching fitness and health goals, irrespective of weight fluctuations and plateaus suggests they are well-positioned to achieve the independent benefits of physical activity and fitness [16–21].

This study was characterized by strengths and limitations. The long-term engagement, participant observation, and repeated interviews helped enhance the trustworthiness of findings and their theoretical validity. Repeated interviews helped enhance rapport, produced more and richer data, allowed for organic member checking, and facilitated researcher and participant reflexivity while reflecting on past interviews. Furthermore, this research design provides greater focus on change than qualitative studies that only include one interview and therefore can present only a snapshot view of necessarily mutable bodily and attitudinal phenomena. Findings such as participants’ increasing sense of mastery, greater body acceptance, and shifting approaches to caloric vigilance were only apparent in the long term and highlight the advantages of using repeated interviews. During the larger study from which this data was derived, analysis was iterative and ongoing during repeated interviews. This allowed for member checking and clarification of issues from previous interviews during data collection, increasing descriptive and interpretive validity. Analysis was subject to ongoing external auditing, enhancing theoretical validity. Variability was sought in weight loss, health, and obesity attitudes. However, the sample was mostly Caucasian, middle-aged, presently obese women, many of whom were affiliated with the healthcare system. This is a major limitation of the study. Given the small and homogenous sample, the findings cannot be generalized. However, the findings largely align with studies conducted in other samples (reviewed above). Furthermore, the themes identified can be investigated in other samples to test their transferability, particularly as more research is needed exploring physical activity experiences and motivations among obese persons of different ages, ability statuses, races, sexualities, genders, ethnicities, and weight trajectories.