Home Health Care Series

Part 3 – Weight

As we stated previously during the second of our four-part Home Health Care series (Part 2 - Blood Pressure), today we'll be looking at monitoring one's weight as another vital step maintaining wellness at home.

Weight gain during the pandemic is worth monitoring, because as many continue to work at home sitting at a computer, it can be easy to gain the "quarantine 15". Therefore, building intention around weighing one's self becomes part of a healthy lifestyle, in addition to other common-sense habits such as taking frequent breaks, a sensible diet, good rest, and exercise.

Part of that intention should be consistency of time and frequency, which, according to doctors, means weighing one's self every day first thing in the morning. A Journal of Obesity study. showed that those who weighed themselves every day and tracked the results lost weight and kept it off. This counters the commonly held belief in some circles that one should not weigh one's self everyday — the data shows otherwise.

So, it's clear that having a scale at home is a good idea whether or not the nation is in the middle of a pandemic, but let's also look at today's obesity trend as it relates to today's respiratory illness.

What is the relationship between hypertension and COVID-19?

According to the CDC, severe obesity puts one at a higher risk of acute respiratory distress syndrome — in other words, obesity increases the chance for further respiratory complications if one were to contract COVID-19, but obesity does not increase one’s risk of contracting the virus.

But obesity’s relation to today's respiratory illness is not just relegated to those who are over 60 — a different study showed obesity in those younger than 60 years-old also being a risk factor in the need to be hospitalized and the need for critical care after contracting the respiratory illness.

The Easy Read Analog Scale provides an accurate, easy-to-use way for weighing one's self while at home.

• It has an oversized 6.5’-diameter dial with 5/8”-tall numerals
• It can be read without wearing glasses
• It doesn’t require a battery to be replaced or recharged
• It has a generous 17” x 13” standing platform
• It has 5-lb. increments up to 330 lbs.

Our next post will take a look at the final piece of essential equipment to properly monitor your health at home during the pandemic.