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G. Rugseth1, G. Engelsrud2
1Norwegian School of Sport Science, Department of Sport medicine, Oslo, Norway, 2Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Education, Arts and Sports, Sogndal, Norway
Background: Early intervention is understood as essential to prevent overweight and obesity among children and adolescents. Physiotherapists in Norway are encouraged to participate in such early intervention, lifestyle change treatment programmes. Their work are guided by official guidelines produced by the Norwegian Health Directorate.
Purpose: To investigate how language and meaning production within official guidelines, express and explain overweight and obesity among children and adolescents.
Methods: A discourse analysis, guided by a question based reading.
Results: An example family are produced within the guidelines. Through discursive measures within the language in use, the guidelines produce both an ordinary family with a hectic daily life, a vulnerable family and a deviant one with challenges. The guidelines use stigmatizing discourses, producing people with overweight as lacking control and knowledge. A discursive order that gives precedence to the medical perspective on overweight and obesity, risk to medicalize overweight children based on bodyweight alone. Health care personnel are provided a paternalistic position within lifestyle treatment, despite weak evidence for the treatment offered and despite explicit ethical considerations and user involvement.
Conclusion(s): The Norwegian Directorate of Health construct children with overweight and their families in stigmatizing ways. The discourses risk to disguise the possibility of understanding these families as people with resources.
Implications: For physiotherapists to contribute in valid ways within lifestyle treatment, they must be trained in reflecting upon their own position within the stigmatizing discourses.
Funding, acknowledgements: none
Keywords: obesity, guidelines, discourse analysis
Topic: Primary health care
Did this work require ethics approval? No
Institution: The Norwegian National Research Ethics Commitee
Committee: The Regional Commitee for Medical and Health Research Ethics
Reason: Our paper adresses public health policy
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
