Chronicles of a Late Bloomer

My mother, of course, owned a bathroom scale when I was growing up.

It was a bubblegum-pink monstrosity of a thing, skinned with a textured vinyl sheet. The scale lived between the toilet and the sink and delivered The Truth through its square little window. That dial face registered weights up to 200 pounds, but was not sophisticated enough to “double back” on itself the way scales did in the 1980’s and 1990’s — borrowing from the 20-pound hashmark to read, say, “230.”¹

By the time scales could “double back” and read weights higher than 200 pounds, my mother was well on her way through 10 pregnancies and had already waved the white flag of surrender against the tide of obesity. So, it was more for the novelty that Mom bought another scale when they went digital, then left it conspicuously in the bathroom on the main floor of our house — a bathroom she never used.

There it sat, inviting us to step on and Know The Truth. Unfortunately, whether for batteries that routinely died, for brothers that used the scale as a trampoline, or for the early-90’s technology that never met snuff, the scale was maddeningly inconsistent. In one session (step on, step off, step on, step off, step on) it would yield 4 or 5 different weights. The digital numbers blinked red as if sputtering their frustration. “247. 259. 233. Oh hell if I know.”

Then, in the year after I graduated from high school, my weight rocketed up 100 pounds and I no longer met the simple criteria for weighing on bathroom scales: I weighed over 300 pounds. It was as simple as that. No scale dial tripled back. Nothing but a doctor’s scale could read over 300 pounds. Rather than face up to The Truth, it was easier to decide that I didn’t give a fuck anyway.

People who weighed themselves, I reasoned, were narcissistic. Obsessive. Ridiculous. Shallow. People who cared about how clothing fit, about being able to paint their own toenails, and about wearing seatbelts without extenders were just insecure. Bathroom scales back then, I learned during occasional furtive shopping glances, measured up to 300 pounds. Good, I growled. I don’t care anyway.

Slowly but surely, I ate my way out of another weighing category: in April, 2002 I was given an “estimated weight” when even the doctor’s scale wouldn’t measure me. They imagined me to weigh 375 pounds — based on the groaning of the springs under my feet — 25 more than the scale could muster. Good, I thought. If I can’t know the truth, then I’ll never have to.

This scale dilemma was one of the main reasons that I joined Weight Watchers. Based on the commercials, the publicized “success stories,” and the parade of humanity that crossed the company’s threshold year after year, I figured that they would have a scale that could measure me. I finally wanted to know The Truth, and I believed that no $49.99 purchase at Target would be able to give it to me.² In fact, for a long time, one of my goals was to weigh less than 300 pounds so that I could weigh myself naked, in the privacy of my own home.

Well, guess what?

Capitalism saved the day.

Somewhere between the early 1990’s and mid 2000’s, manufacturers realized that an entire army of American consumers would pay money for scales that would measure their ever-increasing Truths. Suddenly, the standard bathroom scale would measure up to 330 pounds, and do so without doubling back or flailing around like a fish out of water. Even doctor’s scales now routinely measure up to 400 pounds and higher. Americans are getting fatter, and Big Business isn’t going to let that opportunity pass it by anymore.

So.

When I decided to break up with Weight Watchers, I knew that I would need to buy my own scale. I thought, though, that I would have to get below 300 pounds before I did. And, although I was willing to pay Weight Watchers for The Truth until then, I began to shop around. To my surprise, I found a scale that would both measure up to 330 pounds and also keep the gadget geek and metrics nerd in me entertained.

When I broke the 330-pound barrier, I plunked down my pennies.

Does this purchase make me narcissistic? Obsessive? Shallow? Insecure? Yeah, probably. But, it also gives me The Truth on my own [naked] terms.

1. Who weighs 20 pounds, anyway? [↩]
2. I also joined a gym, where the locker room scale would measure up to 350 pounds for the sole purpose of satisfying my curiosity. [↩]

This entry was posted Wednesday, February 21st, 2007 at 10:03 pm and is filed under Physical. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.