- Obesity is experienced as an existential limitation undermining identity, social relations and participants' being in the world.
- Bariatric surgery appears as a possibility for reframing existence yet may provoke compulsions, emotional challenges and estrangement from the transformed body.
- Multidisciplinary postoperative care with existential and psychological focus is essential to reconstruct the project of being and the lived body relationship.
Rev Bras Enferm. 2026 Aug 3;79:e20250344. doi: 10.1590/0034-7167-2025-0344. eCollection 2026.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES: to understand, in light of the Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenology, the existential experiences of people who have undergone bariatric surgery.
METHODS: qualitative study conducted between April and July 2024 with 13 participants at different stages of postoperative recovery, recruited via social media and snowball sampling. Interviews were conducted remotely and analyzed in light of Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology.
RESULTS: the narratives indicate that obesity is experienced as an existential limitation that affects identity, social relationships, and being-in-the-world. Surgery emerges as a possibility for reframing existence, but it can cause compulsions, emotional challenges, and estrangement from the transformed body.
CONCLUSIONS: bariatric surgery is experienced as an ontological phenomenon of self-transformation. Multidisciplinary care, with an existential and psychological focus, is essential to support the reconstruction of the project of being and the relationship with the lived body.
PMID:42561251 | DOI:10.1590/0034-7167-2025-0344
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