Why It’s Time to Ditch Your Scale
Our bathrooms contain many items we use on a daily basis, be it our trusty toothbrushes, aromatic soaps, or fluffy cotton balls. Beyond that, many bathrooms also hold another item: a scale.
But is it necessary to own a scale? And if not, what may be some of the reasons for it? In this blog post, I will share with you several reasons why I think it’s time for you to ditch the scale for good, if you haven’t already.
Content warning: mentions of dieting, weight loss, weighing oneself.
Weight ≠ health
Let’s start with the basic one, and the most important. Weight is not an indicator or predictor of health. Despite what diet culture will try to make you believe, your weight does not correlate with health issues and being fat does not mean you are unhealthy.
Reducing something as complex as individual’s health to only one marker - weight - not only decontextualizes health from important social, cultural, systemic and environmental considerations (such as whether you have access to a variety of foods, how close you live to a grocery store, how much dispensable income you have to spend on food, what your cultural and personal food practices may be, whether you have ADHD/ASD or other diagnoses that make eating practices more complicated, etc.).
It also perpetuates a lie that makes the diet, fitness and “health” industries richer by the hour: that if only you try hard enough, you can be in charge of your weight. (This one deserves a whole blog post of its own, but all I can say for now is this: don’t you think that if that were true, the whole world would have already lost the weight that was supposedly “extra”? How many times have you heard from others that they have tried every diet imaginable with no success? Dieting. Doesn’t. Work.)
Your weight fluctuates throughout the day, week and month
Your body is an amazing mechanism that works in harmony with body parts, hormones, neurotransmitters, vital organs, muscles, etc. to keep you functioning at your best. You eat different things, you retain various amounts of water, and your body naturally fluctuates in its state. Because it’s meant to do that. That is how it was designed.
Thinking you will constantly be one weight is yet another falsehood the beauty industry and diet culture will try to make you believe. Why? Because when you inevitably don’t - not due to any fault of your own, but once again because your body is designed to be changing - you are more likely to fall prey to the insidious and aggressive diet culture advertising that will attempt to “fix” it for you. In the process, you are left with feelings of guilt, shame and defeat while the diet culture pockets more money.
But the truth is, and always has been, that your body does not need fixing. It is good enough just as it is. It is already a good body.
Scale is a tool of self-harm
And now for one of the most important reasons to ditch your scale: weighing yourself can, and frequently does, become a tool of self-harm. What do I mean by that?
Think about it: when you step on a scale, what have you been conditioned to want to see there? In many cases it is that you lost weight, or that the number that shows up there is lower than you want, hope or believe. What happens when that is not the case?
Many people will begin the process of criticizing themselves, using harsh words and unfair judgements; beating themselves up for something that is absolutely not a personal failure of any kind.
And many will do this daily. Making weighing yourself a ritual of self-harming behaviors perpetuated by the systems and society as a whole.
Beyond the reasons mentioned above, there are other things to consider. For example, if you have guests visiting your home who are in the process of recovery from disordered eating patterns or eating disorders, seeing a scale can be incredibly triggering. At best it can signal that your home is not a safe space for their bodies; at worst it may prompt folks to use the scale and engage in behaviors they are trying to move away from.
On a more practical note, scales take up valuable bathroom space, need batteries, and break frequently without notice.
What do to instead?
First and foremost, try to eliminate the scale from your home. Weighing yourself can not only be self-harmful, it can easily turn into a repetitive, addictive behavior that only worsens your mental health.
If you can’t outright get rid of your scale yet, commit to taking steps toward doing so. Pay very close attention to your behaviors around it:
How often are you weighing yourself?
When are you feeling the urge to do so?
What are your thoughts, feelings and mood right before you weight yourself, and right after? How do they change?
What assumptions/stories are you making about yourself during this process?
Noticing your thoughts, feelings and behaviors will be a first step in reducing the number of times you reach for the scale and can help you eliminate this oppressive device from your home.
Whatever steps you take today toward eliminating the scale from your home and from your life, recognize it takes courage and dedication to do so. It’s okay to take it in small steps too.
Bonus tip
Want to make a cathartic experience out of this? Take your scale to a parking lot, bring a hammer with you (protect your eyes and other body parts as well! ) and smash your scale to smithereens. Document this process if you want.
Thank you for reading this guest blog post. If you are interested in learning more about working with Yuliya, please click here to contact them and schedule a free 15 minute consultation to connect.
Yuliya Rae, LMCHA, MA of Kin Therapy
Yuliya Rae is a therapist working with folks on healing trauma through story, relationship and embodiment. In their counseling work, Yuliya’s focus is on helping their clients heal trauma and abuse by turning toward the body as a source of wisdom, as well as an avenue to cultivate compassion and peace in relationship to self, others and the rest of the world.
Yuliya works with trauma, anxiety, relationship issues, body image concerns and cross-cultural issues, such as immigration, second/third culture experiences and acculturation.
You can learn more about Yuliya and their practice on Kin Therapy website.