Don’t Weigh Me Cards Didn’t Exist When I Was Growing Up. Here’s What I Did at the Doctor’s Office Instead

When I first heard about the “please don’t weigh me” cards that swept through social media a few months back, it was like someone came through my screen and gave teenage me the most giant, “We got you, girl” hug ever. I felt so seen, so heard, and like finally somebody else got it.

Weight stigma in our society exists, and this includes within our health care system. Not only can it have direct effects on our physical and mental health outcomes, but it can also influence our care-seeking behaviors (say, by prompting us to delay or avoid care), our adherence to recommendations, our patient-provider relationship, and our trust in the medical system. So Ginny Jones, the founder of More-love.org—an organization dedicated to empowering parents “to raise kids who are free from body hate, disordered eating, and eating disorders”—created these cards for patients to take with them to the doctor’s office to request to forgo being weighed unless it was deemed medically necessary.

In some cases, yes, getting weighed might be medically necessary—say, for instance, with unexplained weight loss, children’s growth appointments, and pregnancy—though it doesn’t necessarily mean the patient needs to know that number. Plus, as virtual doctor’s appointments have confirmed, there are tons of times medical pros just don’t need that number at all. (As SELF reported previously, weight is often not a great marker of health.)

The process of getting weighed or being told the number can create an intense amount of anxiety, especially for patients with current or previous history of eating disorders or with disordered eating behaviors. It can even re-trigger the disordered behaviors.

I am one of these people.

I have spent nearly three decades purposely avoiding seeing, hearing, or knowing the numbers on the scale. At the height of my eating disorder, my self-worth, emotional state, decisions about what to consume, and literally my entire life revolved around those numbers being less than they were the last time I saw them. It was awful. I’m fortunate that it never progressed worse than that, but, still, I don’t ever want to go back to having my everything wrapped around a number.