For ages, scales have been used to determine the value of things to allow merchants to price their goods in a way that seemed fair to their customers. If a thing was worth a great deal of money, it was said to be worth its weight in gold. Many different types of scales are still used in everyday commerce. Just visit the grocery store and try to spot all the scales in use there. These days, however, scales also play a large part in medical care and health maintenance.

Medical scales are among the first device the doctor uses to help ascertain our health status when we go in for a check-up. The doctor will compare our weight against normal healthy weights for our heights, and even against the records of our own weight on previous visits to see if we have changed or have developed a trend of weight gain or loss over the course of time. Obesity is a strong risk factor for many different serious health conditions including both cancer and heart disease, so it is only fitting that the doctor should help us monitor our weights and let us know if we should undertake a weight loss program.

As we grow older, our activity levels tend to be reduced. We don’t go out and play football or race against our friends as we did when we were younger. Some of us may still engage in exercise like golf or hiking, but even that level of physical activity is lower than that of our youth. As a result, we burn off fewer calories and have a tendency to slowly gain weight over time. As the years mount, a few pounds here and there gets repeated over and over again until we step on the floor scales and find that we have gained thirty or forty pounds.

If we do notice a trend of weight gain, the best time to try to correct it is before it has gone too far. Keeping weight off in the first place is far easier than losing weight and then trying to keep it off. Stepping on the floor scales every week, or even every month and charting any changes to make trends easier to spot can let us know when it’s time to skip that morning bagel during our coffee break and whether we need to consider heading to the gym on a regular basis.

One of the biggest things that we can do to help ourselves grow old in good health is to keep our weight under control. Stepping on the scales and keeping track of weight gains over time is a simple first step to identifying and preventing weight problems that can so greatly impact our health as we age.

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Many people don’t think about the extreme amount of weight measuring that goes in to day-to-day life. We only think about weight when they are being measured on the doctors scales. Yet, everything from food to people to prescription drugs has weight measurement tools made specifically for them. Weight measurement is extremely important in everyone’s day-to-day life beyond just your dreaded visit to the doctor.

In laboratories around the world, scales are used for weighing substances and discovering the mass of objects or a set of objects. These measurement tools can help doctors prescribe medicine with more accuracy. It also helps police and detectives measure DNA information that could convict a criminal. Very precise measurements are needed in any number of circumstances that could produce life or death results.

The most common types of weight measurement used in labs around the world are: beam balances, spring balances, top-loading balances, analytical balances, precision scales, and moisture analyzers.

Beam balances are most often associated with classroom use. They are the cheapest, most durable and have the widest variety of uses. Students can use these in chemistry, biology and life science experiments from 7th grade through doctorate levels in college. These balances can be used to weigh solids, liquids, powders, animals and anything else with a mass between approximately 610g to 2,610 g.

Spring balances are the simplest type of balance and not used for definitive accuracy in weight measurement. This literally consists of a spring fixed at one end with a hook to attach an object at the other. The spring’s coil helps the measurement tool determine the capacity. A good example of a spring balance is the tool used to measure the weight of a fish that has just been caught.

Analytical balances are made for using in chemical analysis. They are designed to produce extreme precision in measurements. Analytical balances are extremely sensitive. They are so sensitive that they must be covered by a draft screen in the laboratory so that air currents in the room do not affect their measurements. They can also be greatly affected by temperature. The measurements produced can be so precise that they can show up to four decimal places to the right of the decimal point. However, they can only measure small samples up to 320 g.

Less precise, but sometimes more practical, top-loading balances can only measure objects up to 200g. These balances can also only show a reading of up to three places to the right of the decimal point. However, these balances are less expensive and are usually not as picky about the environment in which they are placed. Wind and temperature do not affect these balances as much since the measurement they produce is not as exact.

Precision balances have an even wider range of environmental conditions than analytical balances. They are less sensitive to wind and temperature changes. These balances can measure from 600 g to 34,000 g. However, the readability of these measurements is only 2 decimal places to the right of the decimal point.

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