Robyn Shumer_Bones chapter 1

The narrator recalls being eight years old and stepping on a scale at the pediatrician's office. They silently prayed for a low number, fearing being considered fat. Despite being underweight, they had been influenced by societal beauty standards. The scale read 39.5, relieving their anxiety momentarily but fueling their determination to stay under 40. They left with a resolve to exercise immediately. I was eight years old the first time I stepped on a scale and silently prayed. It happened at the pediatrician's office on a bright Saturday morning in the summer of 1982 during my annual checkup. So you're starting second grade, said the doctor as he poked and prodded with his stethoscope, reflex hammer, and tongue depressor. I nodded. Dr. Borofsky had a gnarly beard and looked about a hundred years old to me. I had no interest in his attempt at cheerful small talk. I was thinking about what I knew would happen next. Let's check how much you weigh then, he said, leading my mother and I out of the examination room and down a dark hallway. The scale was one of those five-foot steel monstrosities, a foot taller and a lot wider than my slender petite frame. I shivered. I was naked except for my Cinderella underwear and the rainbow-colored ribbons cascading from my pigtails. I didn't dare wrap my arms around my tiny body for warmth, though. A reckless move like that could cost me big time. It might add pressure to the scale and make the number go higher. That's too risky. I needed that number to be as low as possible. The doctor nodded, and I carefully stepped onto the metal platform, spacing my bare feet evenly for the best weight distribution, and with a deep breath, I made my quiet plea. Dear God, please don't let the number be in the forties. I don't want to be fat. Had I said it out loud for my mother and the doctor to hear, they would have told me I was crazy, that what I was praying for made no sense. I was an active, athletic kid and had always been underweight for my age and height, always the skinniest among my friends and the tiniest in the class picture. According to Dr. Barofsky's exam room wall, the average weight for my size was 50 pounds. And yet, I was afraid of the number I'd see on the wretched scale. The posters of Brooke Shields and Heather Locklear on my brother's bedroom wall and my father's Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue told me all I needed to know about the qualities I should possess to be of value—beauty, sex appeal, and, most of all, skinny. It was the kiss of death. Please, God, don't let the Froot Loops I ate this morning make the number go up. I won't ever eat them again. I promise I'll be good. The doctor slid the little weights left and right along the rotating beam, hitting notches along the way. Click. Click. Click. I watched with laser focus, careful not to lean forward too much, careful not to breathe too much. Would the scale be my friend or foe? It all depended on the number it gave me. Everything depended on that number. The sliding stopped, and the needle on the scale locked into place. Thirty-nine and a half, the doctor pronounced, scribbling on a clipboard. A little low, he told my mother, but nothing to fret about. I breathed a sigh of relief and hopped off. As I got dressed in the exam room, my relief turned into elation and then steely determination. I had to stay under forty, I decided in that moment. It was the only way I would never get fat. I was certain of it. I tucked in my shirt and chucked my hair ribbons in the mirror on the wall. Everything was in place. Everything looked perfect. I raced out to meet my mother in the waiting room, my mind consumed with a new thought. I need to get home right away and do sit-ups. I need to do leg lifts, push-ups. The end.