Hope for dieters!

According to Dan Lewis at Now I Know,

We think of the earth's gravitational field as uniform, pulling us downward equally whether we’re in New York or New Zealand. That’s not quite right, though. As Indiana Public Media’s “A Moment of Science” notes, “when gravity is measured, we find it changes from place to place. That is because the density and thickness of Earth’s rock layers is not the same everywhere. Certain parts of the earth are denser than others, causing the gravitational pull to be slightly greater in those places.”

Perhaps this will give the weight-loss challenged a scientific excuse: "My problem is that my scales are located over an area with dense, thick rock layers, which makes my weight heavier in that spot."

Or it could explain why you weigh five to ten pounds less on your bathroom scales than you do later in the day on the scales at the doctor's office. Nothing is wrong with your scales, in this case. It is the doctor's office that is geologically misaligned.