Quotations from study participants to illustrate each theme
| Themes | Illustrative quotes from participants (also see quotes in the text) (Study reference no.) |
|---|---|
| It's on your conscience all the time | |
| It's down to me | I mean if you're the one that wants to lose weight, then you can't say ‘Right, mum, can you lose weight for me? ’… you're the one who has to go oot for exercise and cut doon on your foods and that eh? That's… what I ken, its doon tae me. (Nick, male, 13 years, ethnicity unspecified, very overweight) (w28, p.400) |
| I would love to say it's all to do with genetics and I have nothing to do with it, but I know that what I do isn't particularly healthy and therefore it's due to me as well… I think it's for me it's just the fact that I'm stubborn and lazy and that I like eating my food. (Holly, female, 18 years, white, very overweight)w12m | |
| It's like a girl thing? | Tobias: ...I'm a couple of inches shorter than all my friends as well and I feel pressure. Tom: If you've got friends who are like quite big in build you want to be the same as them. Although you might not be able to do anything about it, it's on your conscience all the time. You want to be that sort of size. (Tobias and Tom, male, 16–17 years, ethnicity unspecified, healthy weight) (w11, p.229) |
| If you're fat, then they don't like you | …they (boys) think that if you look good then you're okay but if you're fat… then they don't like you. (female, 11–14 years, ethnicity and body size unspecified) (w18, p.24) |
| People that are right big have right dirty houses | Like when you start thinking ahead, like what are you going to be like, people just sit at home eating pizza all time, I wouldn't like to be one those boring people. I want to be a person that can go out, go on holiday, go to work, have lots of friends, get out of the house… you watch a lot of programmes all people that are right big have right dirty houses. (male, 14 years, white, very overweight, BMI 31.3) (w5, p.814) |
| Being fat is really a bad thing (w23, p.156) | If you've got someone in your family who's quite fat, you see how they are and you think to yourself, I don't want to be like that. ...It's a bit of a turnoff if you're fat, so you try not to get like that. (Tony, male, 16–17 years, white, body size unspecified) (w11, p.226) |
| I think it's all down to like your mental, your mental picture of yourself really ... it's when you're like, ‘Oh I feel so bad and ugly today. ’ That, that's when you become really bad, and so size isn't the thing, it's more... the way you act, if you act like all closed and in a corner and not socialising, then I mean attractive is someone who is the life and soul of the party, dancing in the middle, having a good laugh.’ (Huw, male, 17 years, white, overweight)w12j | |
| If I had the choice, I wouldn't be this size | |
| Not wanting to stick outw12b | But the places where I go most of the clientele are like a lot older than me... And that's weird to think that, you know, you'll be, you're wearing the same clothes as like your 50-year-old neighbour or whatever... And it isn't nice... you are always thinking about it, especially in public... if I had the choice I wouldn't be this size. (Rachel, female, 17 years, white, overweight)w12d |
| ...it makes you feel really bad ‘cos if they're going, ‘Oh I'm too fat, ’ how's that supposed to ... make you feel ‘cos when you're like twice the size of ‘em? (Huw, 17 years, white, overweight)w12b | |
| Day after day, you're that terrified | it wasn't just a group thing, it was walk down the corridor, and I actually counted this one day.. how many people said something to me, just walking about a hundred yards twenty-three people I think, and you know every day in between every lesson and going, you know, it gets a lot. (Becca, female, 17 years, white, overweight)w12c |
| Day after day, walking in ... you're that terrified that you don't want to go school, this is what my point of view were like... 3 years I tried not going to school because I used to get bullied and my mum got took to court. (Eve, female, age and ethnicity unspecified, very overweight) (w4, p.414) | |
| I've put on the weight and I still want to do it [participate in PE classes] but it's the glances, it's the sniggers, it's the laughs, stupid things that people were saying, ‘look at her running along, she can barely keep-up. ’ (Sam, female, 15 years, overweight, BMI 38.0) (w9, p.41) | |
| I don't like having to walk into places where I don't know anyone or walking past a group of people; I don't like walking past because of things they might say and they are less likely to say if I've got Diane [sister] with me. (Jane, 17 years, ethnicity unspecified, overweight, BMI 46.7) (w4, p.42) | |
| Vicious circles | I was just getting bullied all the time and nobody wanted to be with me. I was always on my own in my bedroom doing my own thing…. [For the first 6 weeks of a weight-loss programme] I just sat in a corner, didn't talk to anybody. I wouldn't even talk to any of the friends that I'd made. (Chelsea, female, 17 years, white, overweight)w12s |
| When I cry I eat, but then I eat because I'm crying, but I'm crying because I'm getting bigger, and it's just a vicious circle. (Vicki, female, 18 years, white, overweight)w12i | |
| Make sure, even when it's hard, you've got people there | |
| Easier said than done (w13, p.5) | I've got a younger brother and we've got all these sort of stuff in house for him and then that's just like a bit, a bit of a temptation… And sometimes when he gets right nice stuff and I'm sat there eating, I don't know, fish, chips, and mushy peas and it's just not right. (Reg, female, 13 years, white, overweight)w12l |
| [after an exercise intervention] I felt healthier and better and stuff and I felt like I had actually carried out something. Rather than going home and being a couch potato. (Male, 15 years, white, very overweight, BMI 37.6) (w5, p.814) | |
| Yo-yos and pick me ups | I was 14-years-old and having so much like, being so unhappy being overweight, finally getting the weight off is amazing, then piling it all straight back on was just absolutely heartbreaking. Yo-yoing up and down in normal diets just, has just become a way of life really now.... It just makes you really doubt yourself. (Vicki, female, 18 years, white, overweight)w12e |
| [commenting on experience of a community-based weight-loss intervention] You have people who are in the same situation as you… who know what it's like and things like that. If you have a problem or if you have like just a total collapse… you've got people who will just pick you back up. And I think that's been the most thing about it, the most important thing that I've had for me. (Emily, female, 14 years, white, overweight)w12l | |
| Be nice. You've got to help | There's ways to be more tactful. As you know, the doctors that I've had haven't always been particularly nice about it…yeah, there's ways to say things nicely, and although sometimes you need to go for the approach that says, ‘You need to do something about your weight now, ’ there's, there's ways to be nice about it. (Holly, female, 18 years, white, very overweight)w12p |
| I'd just say to like parents that ... without you, you won't be, your child won't be able to do it. And you've got to help them as much as they're helping themselves. And just, if you don't help them, they'll think, ‘Well, nobody's bothered, and, I do try but nobody sees difference.’ (Alex, female, 14 years, ethnicity unspecified, overweight)w12a | |
| Make sure that even when it is hard, you've got people there. (Cris, 14 years, gender, ethnicity and body size unspecified) (w13, p.4) | |
BMI, body mass index.