MayBelle was proud of herself for figuring out how to sign up for her doctor’s web-based information system, so that she could schedule appointments online, request prescription refills, and access all sorts of other helpful materials, like maybe how to get rid of night sweats and hot flashes you’re still having some three years after being told you’ve “gone through” menopause. (Can you say “vaginal dryness,” anyone?) So imagine her disappointment when she logged on today to arrange a follow-up visit and found the following in her file: “Mildly obese.”

MayBelle quickly double-checked to make sure she hadn’t accessed another hapless patient’s account, like, you know, someone who is, well, fat. Still MayBelle.

Now MayBelle is keenly aware she needs to lose a few pounds but deliver me, she said, looking around the room to make sure no one else had seen those two life-changing words.

“Those doctor’s office scales always seem to weigh me heavy,” she said, pulling in her stomach and sitting up just a bit straighter.

For a minute or so, MayBelle thought about going to buy a pie at the farmer’s market, or eating some cookie dough she just might have stashed in the freezer.

“Mildly schmildly,” she thought. “I’ll show that doctor from obese and move right up to ‘moderately.’”

Apparently once you’ve been labeled “obese” you don’t place much import on qualifiers.

But MayBelle knows that’s not the proper, or healthy, reaction. So instead she logged off, took a deep breath, and texted her trainer.