Globally, paediatric obesity causes widespread concern, and the role of ethnicity is an important focus. Investigating how culture can mediate health-related behaviour through ideas about bodies, food and physical activity, while addressing a notion that the Pakistani community in Norway is particularly conservative and slow to change, this article points to the centrality of health as a cultural concept and the state of efficacy of public health promotion in contemporary Norwegian society. A "Foucauldian" perspective lends itself to this approach and the concepts of bio-power, bio-pedagogy and proper citizenship inform the analysis. Specifically, this article examines the obesity and weight loss experiences of Pakistani youth undergoing treatment for paediatric obesity in Norway and the ways in which they negotiate and position themselves amongst competing discourses of weight, health and weight loss.