Want to perk up your next social gathering?

How about putting a bathroom scale in your living room and inviting guests to weigh themselves, while the whole gang watches?

That may sound like the height of rudeness in today's weight-obsessed culture. But a little more than a century ago, festive group weigh-ins were all the rage, according to Deborah Levine, a postdoctoral fellow at Washington University in St. Louis.

"People would think it fun to weigh themselves before and after a big holiday dinner to see how much they had gained," said Levine, who is writing a book on the history of obesity in America.

Before scales became widely available through mass production, there was no stigma associated with weight, Levine said. "Knowing your weight was a novelty, a kind of parlor trick."

People found it amusing to step onto the freight scales at railroad stations, Levine said, and by the late 19th century, affluent homeowners were placing scales in formal public rooms, such as parlors. The scales were dressed to impress, made of polished wood and embellished with semi-precious stones, according to Levine.

But in the early 20th century, scales and attitudes about weight started to change. Medical and life insurance companies set weight "norms," and Americans began to view being over- or underweight as unhealthy. Weight was no longer a fun fact to be shared publicly; it was private information that could be interpreted as a statement about one's health or even moral character.

As the public's perception of weight changed, so did scales, according to Levine. They moved from from posh parlors to kitchens and, finally, bathrooms, hidden from public view.

Weight has become such a loaded topic that Oprah Winfrey's recent 200-pound confession generated headlines worldwide, Levine noted. "That just shows those numbers on the scale have a lot of meaning now."