[Understanding the life of the obese patient. A contribution to therapeutic patient education]

This article presents an approach of obesity centered on patients' experience. How is obesity defined by these latter? Is it considered as a disease? Is it apprehended by them as an element to fight or as a potentially meaningful event? Has the sick person the feeling to suffer from obesity or to have resources to face it? At the crossroads of three human sciences (sociology, anthropology and education), this approach aims to enrich and increase the efficiency of therapeutic patient education for obese patients. Extended experience narration extracts are presented in this article, obtained from research interviews. They show the importance of taking into account the "subjective experience" of the disease when accompanying persons affected by obesity.