Last week I was having lunch with a friend. We were having
a nice meal, chatting about our lives, our kids, and then,
the inevitable comes up (it always does, you know)-food and
weight. But this time it was different, she wasn't talking
about her weight, she was telling me a sad story about a
friend of hers, whom she'd just visited.
This friend, let's call her K, is a large woman, and has
been trying to lose weight for a long time. This fried of
hers had been on many diets, gained and lost, gained and
lost. You know the drill. This time, when my friend was
at her house, though, she knew something good had happened.
K was cheerful, bouncing around, talking happily about her
life- and, most interesting, she had her shirt tucked in.
When asked why she seemed so cheerful (and comfortable with
herself), K said it was because she had recently lost 8
pounds. Ahh, THAT explained the shirt being tucked in. We
all have our "tells"-things we do when we are feeling good
about ourselves. I, personally, wear sleeveless shirts
when I feel confident about my body. Why I think my arms
may be thinner, who knows? But it's my "tell".
And this woman felt good.
My friend and K were having a wonderful time together.
They were laughing, telling jokes, talking about how good
life was, and how they were both doing so well. Later
during the visit, her husband came home. He had been
grocery shopping and began unpacking. After putting away
the food, he went into the bathroom and brought the scale
into the kitchen, where the women were sitting. "Why are
you doing that?" K asked, a small shudder in her voice.
"Because it's broken, it needs new batteries."
Suddenly everything changed. As soon as the batteries were
in place, K grabbed the scale and ran into the bathroom. A
few second later she came out- her whole demeanor changed.
She was now looking down at the ground, her bounce had
disappeared and, more significantly, she had pulled her
shirt out of her pants-it was no longer tucked in. "I
didn't lose any weight", she sadly said, as though she had
committed a crime.
What happened? What happened in those few short seconds
that made such a dramatic change in this woman's whole
sense of self? In those few short seconds, a number on a
scale had torn down K's self confidence. A number on a
scale had been given the power to destroy this woman's self
confidence! She still weighed the same with her shirt
tucked in and her head held high. But a new number, a
larger number, suddenly made her clothes feel tight-by
adding shame to her mind.
Let's hope for a time when scales don't have that kind of
power-when we have enough confidence in our bodies and our
food choices to decide for ourselves how we feel-not some
number on a machine.
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