Shame by scale spurs on dieter

20 June 2011 - 03:03 By MERCIA LAMPEN
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Fancy stepping onto your bathroom scale only to have it tweet how much you weigh to all your followers on the social networking site Twitter?

Fat chance.

But that's how a new electronic scale managed to shame a dieter from the UK into losing 35kg.

London's Daily Mail reported that Jason Wroe, who weighed more than 120kg, used the Withings electronic scale and stuck to his diet because he was too embarrassed to have his scale tell all his friends that he overindulged.

"The key to losing for me was partly the fear of everyone knowing how much I weigh," Wroe said.

He added that the prospect of going to work and having to face people, knowing that you had put on weight, was disconcerting.

The scale uses an iPhone application that users can download free.

Then, using WiFi, the scale talks to the user's phone and, every time he stands on it, posts his weight on Twitter.

The scale's manufacturers claim that the device is very accurate and not only measures how much users weigh but also their body-mass index, and their proportion of lean mass to fat mass.

The device can recognise up to eight users and can communicate with other online weight-management and fitness programmes its users are employing and send the information to Weighbot, Fitburn or Google Health.

In addition, the scale lets its users know whether their body-mass index is within the normal range or if they are classed as obese.

It sends this potentially devastating data to Twitter as well.

Though the manufacturers say that this is simply an electronic way of recording users' diet progress, Johannesburg dietician Adele van den Berg said she doubts that her clients, especially the women, would use it.

"Most of my patients and other people are too ashamed of their weight to make it public," she said. "But I think the scale would be effective."

Psychologist Karel Botha, of North West University, said the immediate "in your face" feedback the scale provides will motivate users to change their behaviour and lose weight.

"From a behavioural psychology perspective, it will be very useful, but only if the scale is used regularly," he said.

The Withing scale is not yet available in South Africa but can be bought online for R1546.

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