In this article we take a brief look at the health risks associated with prolonged sitting and examine how the Core Chair, one of our latest products, can help you escape the danger.

According to an article by Bloomberg, the average person spends up to 8.9 hours a day sitting, and while that might come as little surprise to anyone who works (or has worked) in an office, new science shows that prolonged sitting can have detrimental effects on the body.

An article by one of Mayo Clinic’s obesity specialists, James A. Levine, states the facts pretty clearly:

“Research has linked sitting for long periods of time with a number of health concerns, including obesity and metabolic syndrome — a cluster of conditions that includes increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist and abnormal cholesterol levels. Too much sitting also seems to increase the risk of death from cardiovascular disease and cancer.”

The heart of the problem is this: The standard office chair as we know it today was designed over 150 years ago. And regardless of how far it may have come in terms of aesthetics and hardware, regular models continue to provide little-to-no support to users.

This is because standard chairs (most likely similar to the one you’re sitting on as you read this) encourage “passive sitting.” In other words, standard chairs don’t allow for movement while in a seated position and affect vital body functions that cause some the risks mentioned by Levine.

When you’re body is moving it automatically uses specialized muscles that are used to provide postural support and engage in low-energy activity (including everything from walking to maintaining balance). The use of these muscles greatly increases the activity of enzymes such as lipoprotein lipase, for example, which is responsible for burning fat into energy and converting cholesterol.

According to the Bloomberg post mentioned earlier, enzyme activity drops by up to 95% when these muscles are inactive, leaving fat to stay in your bloodstream. Healthy cholesterol levels also drop by 20% within only a couple of hours of sitting.

One of the most obvious solutions to help tackle these issues was to replace traditional desks with standing desks. However, recent science suggests that standing all day may be just as detrimental to our health as prolonged sitting.

“If what you’re doing is replacing sitting with standing, you’re not actually doing your body any favors… In fact, you’re introducing a whole variety of new risk factors,” says Alan Hedge, a professor in the Department of Design and Environment Analysis at Cornell University, in a 2015 article by US News.

Another popular solution was to replace traditional office chairs with exercise balls to engage core stabilizer muscles. The idea is sound, but the issue with exercise balls is that they provide no postural support for key areas around the body.

So, if standing desks and exercise balls are both out of the picture, now what? Luckily, we’ve just received a new product at Macdonald’s HHC that promises to tackle the issue head on once and for all.

The Core Chair is an ergonomic office seating solution aimed at promoting “active sitting.” Here’s a rundown of how it works:

The Core Chair: A Science-Backed Ergonomic Seating Solution

The Core Chair is designed to engage core muscles around the body while providing excellent postural support around key areas like the pelvis, lower back, and spine.

The seating surface of the chair features an aggressively designed, sculpted seat that harmonizes with the chairs’ pelvic stabilizer  to mechanically relieve pressure around key areas. It also helps to prevent sliding ans slumping and provides added comfort.

The Core Chair also comes with a unique core mechanism that allows movement in all directions up to 14 degrees, in turn engaging your core stabilizer muscles whenever you’re seated.

The height and depth of the seating surface are completely adjustable, as is the resistance level of the core mechanism, allowing the Core Chair to accommodate for a variety of body types and mobility levels.

One of the biggest appeals of this product is the science that went into it’s design. Here’s a quick overview of some of the studies into the Core Chair and how it can help protect you from the risks of prolonged sitting:

The Science Behind The Core Chair:

In 2012, Dr. Jack Callaghan from the Department of Kinesiology at The University of Waterloo and a team of researchers compared the sitting experiences between a high end ergonomic office chair, an appropriately prescribed exercise ball, and a CoreChair. They found that the Core Chair:

• Provided enhanced pelvic and overall functional support than the ergonomic office chair
• Provided effective postural support, opportunities for the body to engage core stabilizing muscles, and encouraged movement to combat the sedentary outcomes of traditional office chairs.

The Mayo Clinic/Arizona State university also found that passive sitting increased calorie burn by 17% when compared to a standard chair.

The Core Chair is also set to be the focus of more upcoming scientific studies at the following institutes:

• Guelph University: Dr Leah Bent will be researching changes in blood flow both in lower extremity and carotid vessels to link movement to enhanced circulatory function. They will also be investigating a number of different variables such as sensation on lower extremities and pressure mapping on the seated surface.
• Cornell University: Dr Alan Hedge will be using graduate students to investigate three variables surrounding “productivity”, “posture” and “anthropometrics”.
• Canadian Chiropractic College: Dr Sam Howarth has proposed investigating Core Chair as an intervention for dental hygienists.

Order The Core Chair Today

If you’re ready to change the way you sit and lower your risk of some of the health risks we’ve examined, we highly recommend coming into the store and trying out the new Core Chair for yourself. For more information about our seating products, contact Evan today. He’ll be happy to assist you with all your questions.