The lived world of the experiencing person is not well-known by external and internal notions of time and space, but shapes its own time and space. "Nursing is a human science of persons and human health-illness experiences that are mediated by professional, personal, scientific, esthetic, and ethical human care transactions. The process of nursing is human care" (Fawcett, 2002). The main concept of Watson's theory is transpersonal human caring which is best understood within the concepts of three subsidiary concepts: life, illness and health.

Human life is defined as spiritual, mental and physical being which is continuous in time and space.

Illness is not automatically a disease. Illness is turmoil or disharmony with a person's inner self or soul at some level or disharmony within the spheres of the person, either consciously or unconsciously.

Health refers to the unity and harmony that exists within a person's mind, body, and soul.

Transpersonal human caring and caring transactions are those scientific, professional, ethical, creative and personalized giving-receiving behaviors and responses between nurse and patient that allow for contact between the subjective world of the experiencing persons through physical, mental, or spiritual routes or some combination thereof. The goal of nursing is to help people gain a higher degree of harmony within the mind, body, and soul. This generates self-knowledge, self-reverence, self-healing, and self-care processes while increasing diversity. Nursing interventions or carative factors that are involved include: humanistic-altruistic system of values, faith-hope, sensitivity to self and others, helping and trusting, human care relationships, expressing positive and negative feelings, creative problem-solving caring process, transpersonal teaching and learning, supportive, protective, and/or corrective mental, physical, societal, and spiritual environment, human needs assistance and existential-phenomenological-spiritual forces (Fawcett, 2002).

Using Watson's theory in order to address the problem of obesity it would be necessary for...

It is necessary to treat a person's mind, body and soul in order to attain success. People who are obese are very vulnerable to the stigmas that society applies to them along with the health issues that arise. It is necessary to not only help these people to control their weight, but they also need help in dealing with the emotional issues that are also involved.
Nurse developed programs that would allow obese people to deal with their physical ailments along with their emotional issues would be ideal. Helping patients improve their overall health, both physical and mental would go a long way in allowing these people to overcome the issues that they are dealing with. Watson's theory of treating the whole person and not just their symptoms is the ideal way to help these people overcome their weight problems. It has been determined that not all weight problems are genetic in nature some of them are emotional issues and unless dealt with the person will not be able to overcome their weight problems.

Implementing teaching strategies that utilize Watson's theories of human caring will help to ensure that nurses are trained in the best methods possible to treat their patients as whole people. It must be recognized that the problem of obesity goes much deeper than just the physical symptoms that can be seen. All issues that effective a person must be treated so that success can be assured.