Dear all:

Here's the history as I know it on test weighing.  My advisor told me the progression from 
when he was doing his doctorate in nutritional epidemiology went from a bunch of 
bizzarre conelike devices to "measure" the breast milk capacity of a woman's breasts and 
has been evaolving ever since.  The original anthropometric research looked into the 
variables that would increase accuracy.  When a measurement is variable, taking repeat 
measurements will improve accuracy.  Babies wiggle.  They are a small weight.  So 
researchers used to manually test weigh babies three times in a row.  They found this to 
be much more accurate.  There are statistical methods to show this.  Hence the evolution 
to the triple weigh average scales.

It is almost impossible to find rental scales in Manhattan.  The one and only time I ever 
suggested to a mother that we needed to do a 24-hour weighing, there was no scale to be 
found.  The scales are EXPENSIVE because there is actually a very small market for these 
scales.  I would say the contrary.  Because people imbue scales with far more power than 
they actually have, they are either idealized and used inappropriately without looking at 
the full picture or they are demonized as being useless devices that scare women.  

Used appropriately, neither is true.  It is just one more, sometimes useful tool  If more of 
us used them, they would cost less.  If more of us used them, we would probably not be 
so fearful of them causing problems.  They would fade into the background as a 
sometimes useful thing to check like diapers and swallows and would not be imbued with 
such "power".  I still thinking of them as being in the measuring cup category - about as 
useful and innocuous.

Best regards,

Susan Burger

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