Dreading the Scale

Graduate student Andrew Geier’s research indicates that anxiety over public weighing may increase women’s health risks.

In pursuit of cost and time efficiency, busy medical clinics commonly put scales in well-trafficked hallways or common rooms, where patients’ weigh-ins can be witnessed by others. But new research by Andrew Geier, a doctoral student in the Department of Psychology, indicates that anxiety over being weighed in public may cause some women to avoid necessary tests and treatments.

Geier, working with psychology professor Paul Rozin, explored how sensitive people were to public disclosure of personal information, including their weight. In a study published in the journal Appetite, the researchers sent questionnaires to 482 college-aged men and women. Their answers suggest that women may avoid going to the doctor and getting necessary tests like mammograms if their doctor visit includes a step on a public scale. Geier’s research also reveals that the more sensitive female subjects are about their weight, the more likely they are to say they would not come in for a free mammogram if public weighing were involved.

In the questionnaires, women showed no more sensitivity than men to general embarrassment or to public displays of other personal information. Women also showed no more discomfort than men at the physical act of being weighed. These other possibilities were tested to ensure that it was the public revealing of weight that made women uncomfortable.

Although the bulk of Geier’s research focuses on how minor environmental cues influence food consumption, Geier’s clinical experience led him to explore the practical ramifications of public weighing.

“To some people it’s absolutely humiliating to be weighed like that,” Geier says. “My hope is that clinicians will look at these results and institute the easy solution of putting the scale in a room or putting a curtain around it. We don’t want people not coming in for life saving tests because they’re embarrassed or afraid to get weighed in public.”