‘There were other guys in the same boat as myself’: the role of homosocial environments in sustaining men’s engagement in health interventions

Current approaches to obesity recommend weight control strategies that focus on energy-restricted diets and increased physical activity. However, these approaches meet with (at best) limited success despite being central to evidence, policy and practice. There is apparently more to weight loss, including potentially important psychosocial processes that affect behaviour change. Using an ethnographic and narrative approach, this study explored the psychosocial processes experienced by those attending a men-only, community-based weight management intervention. Methods of data collection included semi-structured interviews and participant observation, and thematic analysis was used to analyse and interpret the data collected. Analysis and interpretation suggests that personally meaningful psychosocial processes in participants’ accounts comprised three themes, including (1) ‘Everybody is in the same boat’: A shared safe place; (2) ‘It’s a nudge in the right direction’: Broadening horizons and a push forward; and (3) ‘You need to want to change’: Taking control. This paper concludes with some implications for future practice and research in the area of weight loss and health promotion.