Seats Available

If you’ve been following the health news, you’ll be well aware that one of the latest threats to public health is, sitting. Yes, this seemingly innocuous pastime is actually shaving years off our lives, according to a study published a few years back in the Annals of Internal Medicine Reviews (20 January 2015).

Sitting, it seems, causes all kinds of physiological havoc, due of its association with being sedentary. As one fitness site describe it:

“When you stop moving for extended periods of time, it's like telling your body it's time to shut down and PREPARE FOR DEATH.”

The list of problems associated with taking a load off one’s feet is impressive. It starts with a slow down of metabolism. Blood flow slackens and muscles burn less fat, which can then wander around and CLOG YOUR HEART. The pancreas produces more insulin, increasing the risk of diabetes and maybe cell growth, which combined with a lower production of antioxidants, may increase CANCER risk. And if that wasn’t enough, poor blood circulation in the legs can cause varicose veins, lack of activity lowers bone mass, and being sedentary causes the production of mood enhancing hormones to go down. Casual sitting is bad for the back, neck, and even brain function  – potentially raising the risk of DEMENTIA.

All in all, they tell us, sitting more than three hours a day may be costing us seven years of quality life.

And don’t assume that throwing in an hour of exercise each day can compensate for the nefarious effects of plopping down our backsides for hours at a time. Nope. It. Doesn’t. 

The situation is not entirely hopeless, according to the experts. But countering the effects of excessive sitting does require some effort.

One solution is to sit on something wobbly, like an exercise ball. I did this for years. I don’t know if it was healthier than a chair, but it was fun. Another recommendation is to get up and move around a lot. Every hour. Standing desks are effective alternatives, as are treadmill desks. Fidgeting is good, and pacing. So, too, are stretching exercises. The yoga poses of cat and cow are recommended, though awkward if you work in a cubicle.

All of this runs the risk of giving chairs a bad name. And that’s a shame, because the problem with sitting isn’t the chairs. The fact is, people have been using chairs of one type or another for 5,000 years or more. They show up in Egyptian tombs, on Greek vases, and among Pre-Colombian artifacts. And for most of that time, they have not been considered a health hazard.

Instead, chairs have long been appreciated as items that combine both form and function. Architect Witold Rybczynski recently published a book on the history of chairs, called Now I Sit Me Down (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2016), which highlights the beauty and utility of chairs across the ages, and around the world. He theorizes that the earliest chairs were probably folding ones used by traveling nomads in China, and considers the social implications and contrasts associated with who sits, or gets to sit, on seats – as well as cultures that forgo chairs altogether.

Though I haven’t undertaken a formal study of chairs around the world, they do tend to catch my eye when I travel. Especially empty ones. I find there’s something very touching and inviting about them. So, I often take photos of chairs and benches, and have built up quite a collection. Some of them are altered for artistic effect. Here are a few examples:

On a sidewalk in the San Isidro neighborhood of Lima, Peru, this child-sized stool was used by an older woman who would spend parts of her day watching people go by.

I loved the way this bench blended into the winter environment near the Matterhorn in Cervinia, Italy.

On the Kenyan island of Lamu, workers make a distinctive style of furniture that reflects the Indian and Arabic influences of their Swahili culture.

These low sitting chairs were offering a place of rest to visitors in a quiet corner of New Delhi's Red Fort.

When I was very young, you had to pay a fee to sit in the chairs of Paris' public parks, though the stone benches were free. Now you can enjoy the chairs, too, without spending a cent.

How to resist the invitation of a French bistro chair on a sunny terrace in Montmartre?

I have met pastoralists from multiple African tribes and countries. Young men from these communities typically carve their own stools, which they carry with them everywhere and may take different forms - in some cases also doubling as a pillow.

The plush seat of a horse-drawn cart in Cordoba, Spain was just waiting for flat-footed tourists.

This stack of chairs, including a child's high chair, were part of the purposely mismatched furnishings of a cafe in Lima's hip Barranco neighborhood.

Blue and white lounge chairs in Lugano, Switzerland barely marked the distinction between the town's alpine lake and a hotel swimming pool on a sunny summer afternoon.

Molded stackable plastic chairs have become ubiquitous around the world, but here were given a special feline flavor during an art exhibit in Lima's Parque Kennedy (home to many stray cats).

Although they look French, these classic outdoor chairs and tables were set up in a small park in New York City, including miniature versions for kids.

A park bench in Paris' Jardin des Plantes blended into the patterns of light and shadow on a sunny morning.

This empty bench was sitting in a once thriving but now abandoned train station along the western railway line of Kenya that, until recently, ran from Nairobi to Lake Victoria.

These chairs seemed to be abandoned and up for grabs on a quiet square in Amsterdam.