Obesity & Nursing Education:

1. Obesity & Nursing Education: Through the Lens of Nurse Educators Who Have Undergone Weight Loss Surgery Lisa Harrington University of Alabama

2. Background • 40% of American adults obese (CDC, 2018) • “global obesity epidemic” (who.int, 2019) • Healthcare related obesity stigma & discrimination has a significant negative impact (Lewis, et al, 2011, Wakefield & Feo, 2017, Phelan, et al, 2015) • QSEN & KSA – Nurse Educator role

3. Background • Nurse educators who have undergone weight loss surgery have a multifaceted lens and important stories to tell • Caring for obese clients • Being an obese patient, nurse, nurse educator • Physical transformation • Current nursing curriculum

4. Problem & Investigational Merit • Explicit and Implicit biases • Interventions have been minimally effective (Hunter, et al, 2018, Pause, 2017, Teachman, et al, 2003, Howell & Ratliff, 2017, Molloy et, al, 2016). • Bariatric Suit, Trigger Films, Causation Case Studies • Empathy & Bias complicated relationship • Competing discourses • Biomedical inconsistencies • Public policy and social justice • Nurse Educators = Change Agents

5. Literature Review & Issues • Obesity stigma/bias • Conflicting discourses & biomedical norms • Gaps related to nursing education (attempts) • Gaps related to nursing educators (their views) • Nursing education • Biomedical model of health promotion/ labelling/ norms • Patient advocacy/ social justice/ research • Role modeling • Storytelling

6. Theoretical Framework • Post Structural Framework • Language, construction of meaning • Critique of binary categories, othering, control & power • Foucauldian Concepts • Gaze • Legibility • Unruly vs. docile bodies

7. Research Questions How does the lived experience of obesity and subsequent physical transformation following weight loss surgery inform nurse educators’ pedagogical strategies related to obesity in nursing education? • What stories do nurse educators tell explain the contributing influences that impacted their decision to undergo weight loss surgery? • How do nurse educators understand the concept of gaze in terms of their lived experience before and after weight loss surgery, as well as in relation to obesity, in general, within the healthcare and academic realms.

8. Methodology Narrative Inquiry • Use of “lived experience” stories • Recorded & transcribed interviews • Open-ended questions (Lived experience pre & post op, construction of identity and pedagogical strategies) • Collaborative creation of meaning of the narratives • 3-4 participants (undergraduate nursing educators, successful weight loss surgery 2-5 years ago) • Purposeful, convenience, snowball sampling/recruiting

9. Data Analysis • Narrative Analysis • Critical Narrative Analysis • Foucauldian Discourse Analysis • Use of coding: • Narrative • Values • Descriptive • In vivo • Emotion

10. Goals & Study Value • Nearly ½ of adult patients overweight – This is a population nurses must be well prepared to care for – as clinicians & as advocates • Bias is pervasive and reinforced through dominant discourses – Awareness needed • Nurse educators must find balance between promoting health and providing counter-knowledge of the complicated issues surrounding obesity

11. Goals & Study Value Also interesting to explore… • navigating the academic and healthcare realms in an obese body • undertaking radical journeys to health and wellness • how obesity is constructed as a nurse • how transformation impacts identity construction

12. References