Adults' experiences of trying to lose weight on their own: findings from three qualitative syntheses
Though the vast majority of people trying to lose weight do so on their own, without support from healthcare professionals or formal weight loss programmes, most research into weight loss focuses on more intensive programmes. We therefore set out to find out more about what people do when trying to lose weight on their own. As part of this work, we conducted three qualitative systematic reviews to explore people's experiences with self-directed weight loss. The first review provides an overview of the cognitive and behavioural strategies used during self-directed weight loss attempts, and the second two reviews delve further into particular weight loss strategies that emerged as part of the overview, namely self-monitoring and reframing. In this talk, I'll cover key findings from each of the three reviews, and also use these reviews to illustrate how qualitative syntheses can be conducted and used to shed light on people's experiences.
This talk was held as part of the Qualitative Research Methods module which is part of the MSc in Evidence-Based Health Care.