Transforming Health Experience and Action through Shifting the Narrative on Obesity in Primary Care Encounters

Abstract

We sought to understand the impact of primary care conversations about obesity on people’s everyday life health experience and practices. Using a dialogic narrative perspective, we examined key moments in three very different clinical encounters, the patients’ journals, and follow-up interviews over several weeks. We trace how people living with obesity negotiate narrative alternatives that are offered during clinical dialogue to transform their own narrative and experience of obesity and self. Findings provide pragmatic insights into how providers can play a significant role in shifting narratives about obesity and self and how such co-constructed narratives translate into change and tangible health outcomes in people’s lives.