Stan Birch ‘22
Managing Editor
Pro-Scale
I will start this off by noting that adjusting your weight is an issue that can bring stress and potential harm; but, if approached and handled correctly, it can be a factor in maintaining a healthy life.[1] I think having a scale can be a useful tool for maintaining and tracking your health and fitness, but only with the right approach. Smart scales help by taking the focus off of just one number, which doesn’t mean much, and giving you potentially better metrics. Taking charge of your weight requires having the ability to directly track and monitor your progress. When I was younger, I weighed a lot more. I was a few inches shorter, but my overall weight was much higher than it is now. So, my junior year of high school, I started making some changes to address it. When my school’s athletic trainer saw me coming by to weigh-in at least every other day, she asked me to stop. I wasn’t on the wrestling team, trying to hit some arbitrary number to make weight.[2] I was trying to be more comfortable in my body and more effective at my sports. She had seen me get frustrated when my weight had gone up, even when I felt leaner and trimmer.
Her proposed solution: weekly weigh-ins on a smart scale and monthly composition checks. Back in high school, the technology wasn’t as advanced, but the principle was the same: Step on the scale, wait for the readout, and log your weight, BMI, and fat percentage. The monthly manual composition checks were to confirm the fat percentage readouts, a much better indicator than weight or BMI alone.[3] I’ve maintained this approach over the years and it has helped me to keep in check. I don’t mind when my weight creeps up during the winter, I just aim to have it creep back down throughout the spring and summer. More importantly, I don’t focus on my weight as much as my body composition. Keeping an eye on the makeup of body fat and muscle mass gives me a much more accurate depiction of my overall health goals. I also don’t track it daily and wouldn’t advise anyone to unless they have a role in an upcoming superhero movie.[4] At the end of the day, please take care of yourself and make sure you approach the information from a reasoned, safe, and healthy place.
Dana Lake ‘23
Production Editor
Anti-Scale
Human beings weren’t meant to know so many things. Think of all the stuff you know about—algebra, germ theory, negative numbers, Kim Kardashian, FM radio, Leonardo da Vinci, maybe some fun law facts. Over billions of years of hominid development, our brains were expected to learn plant species and animal migration routes, becoming familiar with less than one hundred individuals in a single lifetime.
The rise of cities in the last ten thousand years and the explosion of globalization over the last few centuries are itty bitty grains of sand over the course of our evolution. The Internet has been around for even less time, but it has transformed the type and amount of information we are bombarded with. It’s happened too quickly. We had a few million years to get used to walking upright, and now in less than twenty we’re supposed to adapt to a comprehensive understanding of our deepest biometric secrets? My silly little mammal brain hasn’t even gotten comfortable enough with the concept of winter to avoid seasonal depression—how am I supposed to respond to a smart scale? I can get over space travel and nuclear fission because the facts supporting them are ambiguous and remote enough my brain just sorts them into the “science/magic” category. But facts about my own body? I honestly don’t think humans should even have access to mirrors. A smart scale is an actual nightmare.
My colleague is pro-smart scale for reasons I find incomprehensible and frightening. I can only respond with the same awe I felt when a friend once told me he purposefully turned on all advertising tracking permissions so he could have a perfectly curated online experience. They are thriving on a plane of existence I can’t even imagine and frankly I don’t want to. I think the effort it would take for me to enjoy cultivating a deeper understanding of my own biometric data would be the final straw for my fragile psyche. I don’t look at my phone’s health data or screen time; When I work out I don’t keep track of reps; I don’t even own a regular scale. How far do I walk in a day? How strong am I? What’s my weight? It’s nobody’s business, not even my own.
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sfb9yu@virginia.edu
dl9uh@virginia.edu
[1] I am not a health professional. I am simply speaking from my own, slightly informed viewpoint about my experience and what has worked for me. If you need medical advice as to your weight or health, reach out to a professional or talk to me for my personal thoughts.
[2] Many of my friends were, so don’t read this as disparaging wrestlers: y’all are crazy.
[3] Keep in mind, many of the NFL’s strongest players would be considered obese looking at only their BMI.
[4] But then Marvel or DC is footing the bill for you to get ripped…