Store blood pressure Machines

I suppose you could say, “This little Higi went to the market!” I was at Kroger over the weekend and, for the heck of it, decided to plop my behind down in one of those Higi machines that will take your blood pressure and assess your body mass index, weight, etc. What started off as a relaxing Sunday morning quickly turned into a ripe, hot dramatic mess up in the grocery. I was about to take my Kroger Plus Card and slice open a vein with it. This little Higi was trying to tell me that I was a big fat piggy.

First of all, I decided to get my blood pressure checked. As you all know, I am on the go a lot and resting really isn’t in my vocabulary. It’s good for me to check my blood pressure every once in while just to make sure I’m not at my internal boiling point. As I figured, all was good!

Look at that! 113 over 75. Heart rate of 67 beats per minute. I was feeling relaxed and ready to enjoy a peaceful Sabbath. That was until I decided to try out another little test on the Higi. The weight and body fat test. Here’s how that went down . . .

Do you see that? I said, “DO YOU SEE THAT?!” According to this critical, judgmental and shaming little machine, I, Chad Benefield, am overweight! I have 28% body fat! And, to hammer the point home for me, this blasted little machine showed me a diagram highlighting my problem areas in red.

Lovely! According to this, I am either carrying a child to term . . . or a dozen Krispy Kremes.

This is some crap! I work out. I play tennis. I cycle. I run. I am a freaking beast on an elliptical. What do you mean I am “overweight?” Did the machine not realize I had a hoodie on that weighs at least 4 pounds? I had my keys in one pocket of it; my cell phone in the other. AND I was wearing tennis shoes, which have to weigh a couple of pounds, right? Could this machine not tell that I had covered up my lean and chiseled nakedness with bulky off-brand clothing?

And, to top it all off, as I sat on the Higi trying to keep myself from swearing out loud near the pharmacy window at Kroger, my blood pressure started going up rapidly. In fact, I took additional back-to-back readings. The first said I was AT RISK! The second BP reading after I flunked the Body Mass Index said that my blood pressure was HIGH! Well, I wonder why??!???!