title: Weight-ing: the experience of waiting on weight loss.
abstract: Perhaps we want to be perfect, strive for health, beauty, and the admiring gaze of others. Maybe we desire the body of our youth, the "healthy" body, the body that has just the right fit. Regardless of the motivation, we might find ourselves striving, wanting, and waiting on weight loss. What is it to wait on weight loss? I explore the meaning of this experience-as-lived using van Manen's guide to phenomenological reflection and writing. Weight has become an increasing focus of contemporary culture, demonstrated, for example, by a growing weight-loss industry and global obesity "epidemic." Weight has become synonymous with health status, and weight loss with "healthier." I examine the weight wait through experiences of the common and uncommon, considering relations to time, body, space, and the other with the aim of evoking a felt, embodied, emotive understanding of the meaning of waiting on weight loss. I also discuss the implications of the findings.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. nglenn@ualberta.ca
authors.forename: Nicole M
authors.initials: NM
authors.lastname: Glenn
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001294:Attitude to Health; D001828:Body Image / Q000523:psychology*; D004038:Diet, Reducing / Q000523:psychology; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D009042:Motivation; D009765:Obesity / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D050177:Overweight / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D012649:Self Concept; D012945:Social Values; D013851:Thinness / Q000523:psychology; D015431:Weight Loss; D055815:Young Adult