Patients’ strategies for eating after gastric bypass surgery: a qualitative study

Abstract

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: There is considerable variation in the amount of weight patients lose after gastric bypass surgery, and this may be related to the way they adjust to the operation in their daily eating practices. Little is known about how this varies. On the basis of a qualitative research design, this study therefore explores how patients deal with gastric bypass surgery in their daily lives. SUBJECTS/METHODS: The study is based on interviews with 24 men and women in Denmark diagnosed with morbid obesity who have had, Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery. The interviews were transcribed, coded and analysed using 'grounded theory' methodology. RESULTS: Three strategies used by patients to cope with postoperative changes were identified. In the first strategy, patients treat surgery as time-out, using the operation to facilitate a change in their ordinary habits of daily life, but not as a solution to overweight in itself. Patients adopting the second strategy of surgery as solution would expect their smaller stomach to hinder excess food intake automatically. The third strategy of abstaining was adopted by patients who were afraid to experience negative side effects, or who believed they might 'ruin the operation'. CONCLUSIONS: Patients adjust to their postoperative condition in very different ways. The variation in the ways patients comprehend and cope with the operation and in its effects on their eating routines and practices needs to be further investigated and compared more systematically with the outcomes of the operation in terms of weight loss and overall well-being.

Instrumentalization of Eating Improves Weight Loss Maintenance in Obesity

“…It is argued that, paradoxically, the removal of choice may improve and help re-establish self-control as fewer choices are experienced as a release [11] . Further, the eating strategies patients adopt after weight loss vary [17] suggesting that successful weight maintenance is individual and complex. On this basis, we suggest that a shift in focus from cognitive restraint and control and calorie reduction to patients' context-centered strategies and actual practices may elicit new insights into successful weight loss maintenance.…”

Life Post Bariatric Surgery: The Experiences of People with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: A Qualitative Study

“…Gaining awareness of foods that are low in glycaemic index might also explain the reasons why participants would choose certain types of food that help in prolonging the rise of their BGLs. Hillersdal et al [24] had similar outcomes with their participants' eating habits after BS.…”

“…All participants in this current study believed that they were 'cured' from T2DM, which gave them a sense of relief from the burden of managing their BGLs. Non-adherence to a diet plan and lack of exercise are factors that challenge people with uncontrolled T2DM [24]. This study found that BS was used as a method to manage obesity and therefore assist with T2DM management when Kuwaiti patients no longer responded to the medications prescribed or they sought an easier and faster option to manage their T2DM.…”

Affect and Effect in Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration

“…Hillersdal's role was to investigate how interdisciplinarity was enacted in practice, and how 'the problem of obesity' co-configured in specific collaborations. She had been involved in the development of the project design, and worked with many of the involved researchers in an earlier project on obesity surgery (Hillersdal et al, 2015(Hillersdal et al, , 2016. Jespersen was part of the steering committee of GO and involved in two of the work packages as a PI of the work package focusing on interdisciplinary work practices and co-PI in a work package centered around a clinical trial investigating the health effects on physical activity (Larsen et al, 2017).…”