IRRATIONAL FEAR

Are You Scared of the Scale?

Congratulations! You’ve got Gravitophobia.

Author photo

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.

Office staff got tired of arguing with the gravitophobes. So? They put up the sign.

Yes! Gravitophobia is a real thing. She didn’t use that term of course. I looked it up later online. Gravitophobia is defined as “the irrational fear of being weighed.”

According to an article by Yoni Freedhoff, M.D. in Psychology Today:

Gravitophobes want nothing to do with the scale. Going into the bathroom, many will even avert their eyes rather than risk a glance in its direction.

These are the folks who would rather push back at the poor person who is just trying to take their vitals than step on one.

Thus, the sign. To try to head off folks who are scared of the scale.

But? Being weighed is a necessary part of your check-up. There’s really nothing to be scared of.

Dr. Freedhoff agrees that the scale should be un-scary. “The scale isn’t your friend or your enemy,” he writes. “The…