The complexity of reaching and maintaining a healthy body weight – the experience from adults with a mobility disability

People with a disability affecting their mobility are more likely to be overweight or obese than those without a mobility disability. The guidelines on how to prevent and treat overweight/obese adults in the general population have not been adapted to the needs of people with a mobility disability. A reasonable useful first step in the process of adapting such guidelines is to conduct a qualitative study of the perceived needs of these people. The aim was to explore the experienced importance of body weight among adults with a mobility disability and their perceived needs and actions to reach and maintain a healthy weight. This was an explorative qualitative study based on individual interviews and qualitative content analysis. An inductive analysis of the interviews formed the basis for the establishment of sub-categories, main categories and, finally, a main theme. The twenty participants included in the study have had a mobility disability for more than two years before being recruited. The overall theme, “The complex trajectory to a healthy weight”, included four main categories. In the category (i) Vicious circle of problems , the participants perceived that everything was harder with the combination of a mobility disability and being overweight/obese with one factor making the other worse. In (ii) Strategies based on decisions and attempts , the participants talked about different ways of attempting to reach or maintain a healthy weight. In (iii) Internal resources , they spoke of awareness and motivation as contributory factors. In (iv) External resources — experienced and required , they spoke about feelings that their weight problems were not given high priority in primary health care. They found it difficult to get advice designed for persons with a mobility disability and felt that competence was lacking among health professionals. The participants asked for a team of professionals with adequate knowledge concerning mobility disabilities. People with a mobility disability combined with being overweight/obese have a complex living situation and health needs. The experiences communicated by participants may facilitate adaption of existing intervention programs or development of a new evidence-based obesity prevention program for primary health care settings.