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Standing Desks May Not Be Healthier Than Sitting All Day, Say Scientists (fortune.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a Fortune article: Standing desks are the fashionable furniture of choice at the moment, but they may not really be the healthier alternative to, well, a chair. A review of studies into the benefits of "workplace interventions" to reduce sitting at work, such as sit-stand desks, are inconclusive, according to researchers from a Cochrane work group. That's because there's little evidence of the long-term effects of standing at your desk. "At present there is very low to low-quality evidence that sit-stand desks may decrease workplace sitting between thirty minutes to two hours per day without having adverse effects at the short or medium term," scientists wrote in an updated Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews study released this week.
Anyone get the idea that this whole "health" idea of the standing desk was invented by IKEA, or other office furniture manufacturer?
I don't understand people's obsession throwing money at an expensive adjustable desk. Just get a drafting table and a tall chair. Problem solved.
I stopped reading at "my chiropractor will tell you"
And yet I can guarantee you will find several studies that tell you that the straight-back position, even in a standard chair, is probably bad for you.
In fact, it's recommended to have a small curve in your back when sitting in even a normal chair, i.e. slouch down slightly.
I only hurt when asked to "correct posture" sit... that's just uncomfortable, and things that hurt often hurt for a reason. Maybe my body is taller/shorter/less weighty or whatever, and that's why it hurts to sit straight (despite DECADES of teachers, parents, employers, telling me to do so), and yet a slight slouch is perfectly comfortable. Maybe yours differs because of others factors.
Maybe, just maybe, there's no one right answer beyond "stop doing whatever hurts for you", and that telling people how to sit, lay, eat, write, or anything else is just people imposing THEIR body response on everyone in the world.
As I speak, I have a 4-inch gap between my butt and the actual back of the chair. It doesn't hurt at all and I can maintain that for hours with zero effort.
On a similar note, I deploy IT in schools and, especially with little kids, NOT ONE PERSON has ever questioned that I put the mice on the right-hand side. Nobody moves them to the left. Ever. Even left-handers. They are free to, I just set them up to the right, and I'm bound by workplace regulations on how much elbow-room must be on both sides so it's not that either. But nobody ever switches hands. Until you point it out. Then even the left-handers find it uncomfortable.
Maybe, unless someone is complaining about it hurting or feeling wrong, there's not a problem to solve. And when they do complain, forcing other people to do something uncomfortable for them for the sake of everyone doing the same thing is just stupid.