title: Weight loss surgery as a tool for changing lifestyle?
abstract: This article critically explores the tension between perceptions of weight loss surgery as a last resort and as a tool. This tension stems from patients' doubt and insecurity whether expectations for a healthy life will come through. Thus, even after surgery, traditional weight loss methods, including diets and exercise, are considered paramount. Drawing on a series of interviews with Norwegian women, we argue that the commercialization of weight loss surgeries as well as the moral stigmas attached to such operations serve to perpetuate this tension. More specifically, the women were advised to leave their old habits behind, and embrace a healthier and more active lifestyle. In such a climate, we argue that undergoing surgery without subsequently embodying dietary and exercise norms is hardly an option. On the contrary, these become a moral obligation that modern women need to relate to--and perhaps negotiate--in order to repudiate stigmas attached to weight loss surgeries as a quick fix for those incapable of losing weight in the "proper" manner.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Health and Society, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway, k.s.groven@medisin.uio.no.
authors.forename: Karen Synne
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: Groven
authors.forename: Målfrid
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Råheim
authors.forename: Jean
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Braithwaite
authors.forename: Gunn
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Engelsrud
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001294:Attitude to Health; D050110:Bariatric Surgery / Q000523:psychology; D004038:Diet, Reducing; D015444:Exercise; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008875:Middle Aged; D009664:Norway; D009765:Obesity / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D040242:Risk Reduction Behavior