Obesity Sitting in Offices – Modern Office Comfort

Everyday around the world people are busy making efforts to be as comfortable as possible in all sectors of life. Both the old and the young, rich and poor, illiterate and literate virtually everyone you included. The only things not know to us in the rush for comfort is that we are using the same speed in acquiring health complications. Take a look around you beginning with your home, office, your car, your church hall, cinema halls name them what kind of seats are you using? This is what I am talking about. I will not object to the fact that these seats are indeed comfortable but are they comfortable to your health?

What you may not know is that these comfortable seats as you call them are a great threat to good health and are associated with the problem of weight gain and obesity meaning as we buy comfort we are at the same time paying for health problems related to weight gain and obesity. Have you ever wondered why our ancestors were very healthy and were living longer than we are today? There are several reasons but I will only talk about how they used to sit and what they were sitting on

Tracing the kind of life our ancestors lived in relation to today’s life style weight gain was never a problem and to be honest there was under weight. They were using firm wooden furniture without the arm’s length and back rest which is very uncomfortable for us today, what surprises me is that there was no weight related problem and less incidences of certain types of diseases that to an epidemical proportion affects the industrialized world today. Let us discuss further about these olden day’s seats.

Obesity Sitting in Offices – The traditional seats

The body needs to be active and because of the nature of life today most of the while collar jobs we do are done while sitting down of these modern seats. Studies have established that sitting for a long time as we do in our offices on the modern seats brings adverse musculoskeletal changes which causes excessive weight gain. In most societies in the developing world for example the kinds of furniture used consisted of very simple three legged seats without the back or arm rest. These industrious seats like the sofa, couch, armchair, rocking chair or even the chairs fitted with backrest were a luxury that could only be associated with a small population of the rich who could afford them. The point is that the majority of the world’s populations were using chairs with a wooden seat and wooden benches, and in the last few decades huge changes have happened.

Obesity Sitting in Offices – Upholstered furniture

Not so long ago, even in the industrialized world, the upholstered furniture was affordable only to rich people. Nowadays, due to the advancement in technology, production and economic prosperity, it is available to a great percentage of the world’s population because of the drastic reduction of their cost. The economic prosperity has come with great changes and diversification of how we live. We have replaced the traditional sitting furniture with modern ones consisting of chairs with an upholstered seat surface, like sofa, arm chair, couch, etc. if you were to interrogate technology of producing today’s upholstered sitting furniture is vastly different from the manufacturing technology that was used just a few decades ago. As a matter of fact not long ago all upholstered sitting furniture were made using spring systems. The expensive sitting furniture was made using eight-way hand-tied springs that offer a firmer seat and a sitting position. The less expensive sitting furniture was made using sinuous springs that offers a softer seat.

The current technology has tactfully eliminated the use of eight way hand tied spring and sinuous springs in a bid to cut on cost and has resorted in the cheap method of stuffing or padding with soft fuelling, mostly using polyurethane foam which are less costly. Even though a few furniture are still being made using springs these are very expensive and a preserved of the very rich leaving the majority with the upholstery of the cheap sitting furniture consists of high density polyurethane foams wrapped in fabrics that provides far softer seats compared with the sitting furniture that is made by using the spring system. The element of cost has drastically revolutionized the quality of seats in that it is less and less common for chairs to have a firm surface of the seat and most chairs have a soft upholstered seat.

This revolution has not only replaced the old sitting furniture with the less costly version of modern sitting furniture’s in households, but also in public places like schools, universities, restaurants etc. chairs with a firm seat surface are replaced with the less costly version of sitting furniture that have a soft upholstered seat. This has really increased the current generation vulnerability to weight gain and obesity and all other complications associated with the two.

Obesity Sitting in Offices – Overweight and Obesity

Funnily enough the changes that have taken place in the life style and food is not too much in relation to the ones that took place in the sitting furniture revolution. Let us get a bit of insight of this aspect even as we try to understand the implications of weight gain and obesity in the whole process. Just not long ago (a few decades) the greater population of people suffering from overweight and obesity came from the bracket of the rich and wealthy people while it is the rich who could afford the upholstered sitting furniture. Nonetheless obesity was rare and morbid obesity was inexistent the reason for this being, the seats of the upholstered sitting furniture were far less soft compared to today’s cheap version of upholstered sitting furniture. What a contrast that:

• Today the expensive upholstered furniture is made by using the same technology that was used a few decades ago.
• Today the prevalence of obesity among the poor population is not much different than what was the case a few decades ago.
• The primary reasons for that is that they still use sitting furniture that is manufactured using the same system that was used a few decades ago.

Things have really changed and today in the developed world the most obese and particularly morbidly obese people are mostly found among the less affluent population.  The primary reason for that is because they mostly use the less costly modern sitting furniture. During the time when sitting furniture was made mainly from wood without upholstering and mostly without back support, at the same time among the poor and the middle class population, obesity was unknown. During those times, the problem among the less poor population was mostly being underweight and not overweight, and severe obesity or morbid obesity was extremely rare.

In the developed world, modern less costly sitting furniture is the main factor that has caused the less poor population to be affected with overweightness and obesity to a far greater extent than the rich population. Modern upholstered sitting furniture, particularly cheap versions that includes upholstered chair, armchair, sofa and couch are the main contributing factors for the increased prevalence of overweight and obesity throughout the world.

Finally dear reader modernity has brought with it a lot of good and bad in almost equal measure and we are privileged to be leaving in this modern world. I want to advice you not to be confused with what is happening around you. Take time and consult the experts at AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center under Doctor Akoury’s care. At this facility you will get all that you need concerning weight gain and obesity and be able to live a life full of hope and comfort I am talking of healthy comfort. And if you are obese doctor Akoury together with her team of experts will help you get better while focusing on Neuroendocrine Restoration (NER) to reinstate normality through realization of the oneness of Spirit, Mind, and Body, Unifying the threesome into ONE.

Obesity Sitting in Offices – Modern Office Comfort