IRRATIONAL FEAR
Are You Scared of the Scale?
Congratulations! You’ve got Gravitophobia.
At my annual checkup yesterday, the first thing the medical assistant did was ask me to step on the scale.
I noticed that there was a sign posted above the scale informing patients that their weight was part of their vitals, and instructing:
Please do not argue with medical assistant.
“Do people actually argue with you about getting on the scale?” I asked the medical assistant. “So many people that you actually had to post a sign?”
“Yes,” she said. “They do.”
I could tell by the look on her face that she had plenty of stories she could tell me about doing battle with patients who wanted to shun the scale, but she didn’t want to diss any of the practice’s valued customers.
She did tell me that there are patients who flatly refuse to be weighed, or try to talk her out of weighing them, assuring her that they know their own weight and can tell her the right numbers to log on their chart without their having to step on the scale.
“Some of them try to breeze right by the scale and pretend it’s not there,” she said.
