Weighing yourself can be stressful, particularly if you have avoided stepping on the scales for a long time and have no idea how much you weigh or you are trying to lose weight and need some way of monitoring your progress. There are some people for whom stepping on the scales is no big deal, but if you’ve long had a weight problem then you’ve no doubt had to contend with humiliating occasions when you’ve been forced to weigh yourself, often as a child. It is these kinds of experiences which can leave you reluctant to be weighed and make you stressed out just thinking about it.
You don’t always need to step on the scales to know you’re overweight. Unless you’re only a couple of pounds overweight and it doesn’t show you usually have some idea when your weight is a problem. Indeed, you’re probably avoiding the scales precisely because you know that your weight is an issue, but aren’t yet in position to want to do something to change it. If you don’t know how much you weigh then you don’t have to face up to how serious a problem it is becoming and actually start to tackle it.
However, as soon as you go to the doctor with any health complaint the issue of your weight will no doubt be raised, and you may be ushered towards a set of scales, bringing back the horror of being weighed in front of your classmates or by your parents and being told that you need to lose a few pounds. If you feel stressed out it is hardly surprising as you simply assume that you are being judged negatively for being overweight and you don’t even want to look down at the numbers, although curiosity often gets the better of you.
Once you’ve seen how much you weigh, though, you can’t erase the figures from your mind and so you feel obliged to go on a diet. You then have to deal with stepping on the scales each week at home or at your slimming club in order to see if any of the changes you’ve made to your diet have actually had an effect on your weight. If you’ve lost a few pounds you’re probably ecstatic and all the hard work seems worth it, but if you haven’t lost anything or even gained a pound or two you feel that it is all a waste of time and that you may as well give up.
Since weighing yourself can be extremely stressful it is hardly surprising that so many people choose to avoid the scales altogether