Surprise from a “Fitness” Company
Trigger warning - scale talk.
So one of my fitness goals for this year is to put on some muscle and gain strength in my upper body.
One of the things about playing roller derby is that most of the action is in the legs, butt and core… so unless derby girls actively pursue upper body strength, we end up with large thighs, big booties (I have yet to receive this miracle, but fingers remain crossed), and tiny, weak tyranosaurus rex arms.
This year I am attempting to do something to rectify the tiny tyranosaurus rex arms. I want to put on muscle.
Now because I am a geek who loves to be able to measure progress and exactly how much muscle I am putting on, I decided that I would get one of those “analysis” scales… a) because my old scale is, well, old, and off, and in all other ways not really fit for service any more and b) although the old scale could tell me if I was adding weight, it couldn’t tell me what kind of weight.
So I got this scale that does weight, but also tells me body fat percentage and hydration levels. So I will be able to tell while I am putting on some weight, how much of the weight is muscle, water, fat, etc. (I live for numbers!)
All that is just a prelude to the surprising thing, though.
When I unpacked the scale and started looking through all the paperwork, there was a single sheet - “A message for women”.
Wha?
So I read it, and, basically, it was a sheet saying - hey ladies… you are female, your bodies are built in a certain way… you need to have more fat on you than men, and you have hormonal shifts that will impact the levels of fat you have during the month as your water percentages shift, etc.
The gist of it was… hey - don’t get all crazy with this scale and start thinking you need to have crazy low body fat, and don’t freak out when your numbers change some with your cycle.
It was so surprising to me that a fitness company would take this kind of attitude… I would have expected more of a… HEY! USE THIS SCALE TO GET YOUR BODY FAT AS LOW AS YOU CAN! kind of message. But instead, here was this perfectly reasonable information, telling women that they DO NOT need to get their numbers as low as they can go. Kinda refreshing.
Now, of course - there was still a lot of weight loss talk in the material… I mean, it WAS still collateral material for a bathroom scale.
But still.
Oh, good luck getting muscely arms. I really love weight lifting. I need to do it more.
Sounds rather reasonable, despite all the weight loss talk. Maybe a little dissonance, but better than nothing, eh?
Peace,
Shannon
I don’t have a scale but the one my mother has talks to me. Actually I think she has it programmed to mock me but that’s a whole other can of worms right there.
I think that’s reflective of a common mindset in the fitness culture (which I see as near, but separate from diet culture) that the typical scale-obsession, lowest body fat possible paradigm is not just mentally bad, but gets in the way of women’s health and fitness. While I would never claim that most fitness forums are fat positive, these days the major themes you hear are about women getting stronger and making sure not to starve themselves or obsess about the scale. Lurking around fitness forums led me to learn about glycogen and water weight and why using the scale every day was so stupid anyway so that was a good thing.
I have arthritis in my knees, and while I do walk sometimes, most of my exercise has become upper body stuff. I’m a redhead, and my goal is to look exactly like the woman in Attrice’s picture on the sidebar, down to the Shazam! lines in the background.
I lift weights, but my favorite activities are the speed bag and heavy bag. Maybe watching the whole series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer this fall helped, but I just find beating something up so much more satisfying than plain old “exercise”.
As for scales, don’t like ‘em. Don’t want one. But I am very, very curious to hear about dufmanno’s mother.
Hmm… I don’t know how I feel about this… to me, it’s kinda like the warning labels on a cigarette pack (and I’m really not judging as a former smoker myself).
But the idea of putting a scale in the average woman’s home that not only tells her how much she weighs, but her body fat as well is going to drive women mad! I can just think of 10 girlfriends of mine that would become obsessed in the most unhealthy way with such a thing. Quite frankly, I would have been one of them not so long ago.
But on the other hand (you can’t hear it but there was a deflection in my voice just now because I’m begrudgingly giving praise to this company)… kudos for them to at least realize that their product could be detrimental to a woman’s confidence and psyche.
Yeah - scales CAN be huge triggers / problems in and of themselves for some people… I think I was just shocked that the company might recognize that at all.
The cynical side of me thinks they are probably just covering their asses in case of future law suits…