This thesis explores one of the most important but neglected areas of medical education: obesity. I have worked in this area in an educational capacity with final year medical students for five years. I have published and presented at conferences extensively, and have become increasingly critical of the prevailing research paradigm in this area. I have had time to reflect on my journey and the drivers behind my educational practice, which were reflective narratives of my students’ first consultations with obese patients. I have identified and analysed the stories that informed change to my academic practice through a retroductive explanatory narrative analysis: why might this student, in this context, write this story in this way? Why was it impactful on my practice at that time, and in what ways did it inform change? Finally, I have theorised about how practitioner narratives create educational value for the narrator, researcher and reader.