The hyperphagic experience in obesity: a phenomenological study of French and Brazilian contexts

Abstract

Abstract This article aims to understand the hyperphagic experience in the obesity of patients in the French and Brazilian contexts. Using the critical phenomenological method, twenty subjects were interviewed in health services in Paris and in Fortaleza. We note an objectification and expropriation of the body often experienced in the hyperphagic experience in obesity. We highlight the emphasis on health in the French context and on form and aesthetics in the Brazilian context. In Fortaleza, there seems to be a more evidenced discrimination in relation to obesity and a pathological discourse, whereas in Paris this pathologization is viewed from a critical position regarding the treatments. We conclude that the hyperphagic experience in obesity reveals a subject who is often lost in his/her way of being and having a body, and that clinical work must involve the re-appropriation of this body and the recovery of the condition of the autonomous subject.