Chairs are a Health Hazard!

In contrast to our preindustrial ancestors, most of us (with the exception of toddlers or those playing with little children) rarely sit on the ground.  In the modern age, we consider it uncivilized to be sitting on the ground. If you were to visit a friend’s home, you would expect to sit in a chair and to dine on a table. It would likely invite critical commentary and embarrassment for most people in our day not to have such accommodations available for guests. But once again, this is contrast to the way we lived for well over 95% of our time as a species.

In the pre-industrial age, and certainly in the paleolithic times, we sat on the ground or at best on a log.  Chairs were non-existent until just a few thousand years ago. Even after that it continued to be only rare except among the nobility and royalty in pre-industrial times. 

Chairs have made us Frail

So what you ask?  The problem is, this is one more way by which mindless consumption has led us to become more frail as a people.  Imagine what life would be like if you did not have chairs. You would be sitting on the ground. That also means you would have to get up from the ground.  This takes muscle to pull yourself off the ground. Basically, you would need to do squats or some variant of that several times a day. Such force requires the use of multiple muscle groups including the gluteal muscles, hamstrings, quads, hip flexors, adductors, and calves.  It usually also involves some use of the upper body including the triceps, and pectoral muscles.  

In fact, in places around the world where chairs are less common (i.e. in certain developing countries and nomadic communities), that is exactly what they do.  Again, so what?  The problem is the loss of strength, balance, conditioning and flexibility.  This takes a heavy toll on all of us but particularly on the elderly population.  Thus, they are far more frail, prone to falls and face increased risks of injury than then would be otherwise.  

We are Natural Beings ideally fit for the Natural Environment

So should we be throwing out our chairs then?  No. At least, I don’t plan to do that. The point is that driven by mindless consumption, we’ve engineered out many of the things that were natural and good for us.  Chairs do provide comfort. However, like many of our purchases that increase comfort, convenience, cleanliness and/or productivity, that does not necessarily translate to increased happiness. In this case, it may detract from our health and thereby lead to a decline in happiness if our health is impacted.  Again, the point is that we ought to be mindful of our purchases.  Keeping in mind that the best things in life are largely free of cost, we can save much more of our income than many people think possible once we reconsider what we think of as essentials.

Over Time More Things are thought to be Essentials

For readers of Health in Flames, you’ll recall that Adam Smith had to foresight to accurately predict that an increasingly greater number of things would become necessities over time that one would be ashamed to be without:

“By necessaries I understand not only the commodities which are indispensably necessary for the support of life, but what ever the custom of the country renders it indecent for creditable people, even the lowest order, to be without. A linen shirt, for example, is, strictly speaking, not a necessary of life. The Greeks and Romans lived, I suppose, very comfortably, though they had no linen. But in present times … a creditable day-laborer would be ashamed to appear in public without a linen shirt … Custom … has rendered leather shoes a necessary of life in England. The poorest creditable person of either sex would be ashamed to appear in public without them.

The Wealth of Nations

Rethink Everything

This means we need to re-think everything that we’ve grown accustomed to thinking is right for us. I’ve made the same point about air conditioning, and even about the use of utensils, dressers, garages, televisions and the sizes of our homes. The point then is to draw a line in the sand for yourself so that you can decide what is truly necessary and which purchases are instead a matter of just mindless spending and keeping up with Joneses or arbitrary societal standards.