Does Humidity Affect Bathroom Scales?

More and more weight watchers are getting bathroom scales these days. Ever since the pandemic, people have become quite conscious of their weights and take various steps to aid their weight loss process. Having regular or digital bathroom scales at your disposal gives you the freedom to weigh in at any time of day. 

However, many people are unsure whether keeping smart scales in their bathroom would be safe. This is because they believe that any temperature change can affect the scale's weight reading.

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Humidity Increases Your Weight

Usually, the changes in your body weight lead to long term changes in body mass index. However, they could also result from smaller changes, like your body's water weight. You'd be surprised to learn that your body undergoes massive changes depending on the weather, causing you to either gain or lose weight. 

Surprisingly, high humidity is one of the biggest reasons behind weight gain, especially once your body gets used to a lot of activity during warm weather. As the climate changes, it gets hotter and hotter, causing our bodies to adapt through a process called  "heat acclimatization."

By the second day of this adaptation process, you start to sweat sooner and more often. This reduces skin temperature and body heat storage while improving evaporative cooling. Because of the massive increase in sweating, your body's fluid requirements become significantly higher.

What's more, heat acclimatization improves your body's fluid balance, making you thirsty more often. This increases your blood volume and total body water, which is why people often notice regular weight fluctuations during humid conditions. 

How To Protect Your Bathroom Scale's Accuracy and Lifespan

Your bathroom scale may fail to provide an accurate reading if exposed to too much humidity. Let us discuss some tried and tested tips to protect to steer clear from inaccurate readings and improve the scale's lifespan. 

Keep Away From Humidity

The last thing you want to do is expose your spring scale or digital bathroom scale to too much humidity. If you want your scale to show you your actual weight, consider keeping it in drier areas, preferably away from the sink or the bathtub.

Scales provide consistent results when you keep them at room temperatures. So, placing one in the sauna is a big no-no.

Humidity causes you to sweat a lot, and the more you sweat on your scale, the higher the chances of shortening its lifespan.

In case you can't seem to find a dry place in your bathroom, ensure that you clean it consistently to minimize or even eliminate the margin of error when you weigh in. 

Don't Store Objects On It.

Keeping various objects on your scale can significantly reduce their lifespan. Whether you are using a digital scale or an analog variant, storing objects (light or heavy) will increase their inaccuracy.

It would also help if you kept your stuff far away from your scale as they could always tip over and cause irreparable damage, no matter how durable it is. 

Keep Away From Direct Sunlight

You could risk damaging your scale by exposing it to direct sunlight. Too much heat can harm your digital scale's internal components, reducing its lifespan in the process.

Whether you store your scale in the bathroom or your living room, ensure that it is away from too much heat.

You can close your windows and draw your blinds to reduce the amount of sunlight entering the room, making sure your scale offers accurate readings for a longer period.

Don't Drop or Kick

Dropping your scale on a hard surface can significantly lower its lifespan.

Sure, the product you have may be highly durable, but there are some things that even the best machines cannot endure, and dropping and kicking are a couple of them.

If you want to carry your digital scale to another room, ensure that you lift it with caution and place it on a flat surface to get an accurate weight reading. 

Kicking can also damage your machine. (Of course there are those moments when you may want to kick your scale out of frustration!) The even accidentally kicking it as you walk past can disrupt the scale's accuracy. 

Final Thoughts

Now that you know the impact humidity makes on bathroom scales make sure you keep yours at a safe place by following the handy tips discussed in this piece.

References: 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/experts-body-wieght-ambient-temperature/