Leger lige børn bedst? - Et kvalitativt casestudie af en livsstilsintervention målrettet børn med overvægt

Abstract

There has been an increase in overweight among the Danish population for the past many years, and more than half of the Danish population now live a life with overweight or obesity. Overweight people can experience various consequences for their physical, mental, and social health, which is also the case for children who can battle with consequences of being overweight from an early age. This thesis examines the health intervention for overweight children, HIIT’n’Move, with focus on uncovering its capability to overcome some of the psychosocial barriers that are often related to overweight among children. Furthermore, the thesis seeks to examine the implications of HIIT’n’Move for the possibility to participate in communities in the civil society for this particular group of children. HIIT’n’Move revolves around high-intensity interval training for children with overweight within the age range of 9-16 years through physical activities specifically planned to take potential psychosocial barriers into account. This is regarded as a case for health intervention for children in the context of this thesis, which has a mixed methods approach with the intent to provide a comprehensive understanding of the research questions through the use of several qualitative methods. The methods used for this research include documents, interviews, and a compressed ethnographic study. The documents are mainly articles and descriptions of HIIT’n’Move, which provides an insight into the arguments that has led to establishing this health intervention. The six included interviews help portray the experiences with HIIT’n’Move, which draws on the perspectives of both children participating in HIIT’n’Move and their parents, but also an interview with a professional with experience from this field. The ethnographic approach is primarily comprised of observational methods with observations of all three HIIT’n’Move locations, and short ethnographic interviews and conversations with mostly the children and coaches. This has given a further understanding of how the intervention takes place in practice. After the initial identification of relevant patterns in the empirical data, several theoretical views have been used to get a deeper understanding of the field. In this case with use of Erving Goffman’s theory of social stigma and Kristian Larsen’s theory of health capital regarding inequality within health among the population. This has provided a frame to interpret some of the perspectives found within the data. As one of my main findings in this thesis, I have found HIIT’n’Move to be regarded as a safe space for overweight children, that allows them to participate in fun physical activities on their own merits and without stigmatization within this social context. On the other hand, the argumentation for HIIT’n’Move is described as targeted overweight children, which has an underlying element of stigmatization, as it differentiates overweight children from other children. Another important finding is that the competitive nature of activities in the civil society can be excluding for some people, which might also be the case for some overweight children, who either prefers to approach physical activities in a playful manner or simply do not possess the abilities to keep up with some of the other children in this regard. This could also be a result of the family not having the adequate experience with being a part of communities in the civil society. In summary, an effort like HIIT’n’Move definitely serves as a beneficial social context in some regards for overweight children. The children can achieve valuable experience with physical activities among other children in a safe environment, which can lead to a smoother transition to social activities in the civil society. On the other hand, it is important to be aware of the ethical implications that come with health intervention, which call for reflections and discussions on this matter.

A master thesis from Aalborg University

Leger lige børn bedst? - Et kvalitativt casestudie af en livsstilsintervention målrettet børn med overvægt

[A qualitative case study of a health intervention targeted overweight children]