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Stand and deliver

Date: December 15 2012

Richard Glover

You're sitting down to read this? Oh, I really wouldn't. Sitting down is so last month. You should be standing. Sitting is the new smoking. Standing is the new black.

The chair, according to the latest theories, is doing us all a mischief. Our bodies were not designed to sit on chairs. Evolution fashioned us for life on the savannah. We'd stride around in the active-wear of the time - a loincloth and wildebeest flip-flops - hunting animals and gathering salad veg. Sometimes, if needs must, we'd sink to our haunches to catch our breath.

No one has figured out who came up with the idea of the chair. In Roman times, you were either standing - striding up and down the viae publicae showing off your toga - or flat out on a couch eating grapes. Rarely did anyone propose hinging the body at knee and hip in order to produce the stance we call ''sitting''. ''What's the point?'' they would have thought: a mid-point between standing and sprawling that is good for neither relocation nor regurgitation.

By the Middle Ages, attitudes had begun to change, partly due to the sheer quantity of mud. The mediaeval period was known for its mud. In order to remove it, you needed to sit, lifting one foot and then the other, chiselling away at the stuff, leading to the invention of both the bench and the stool.

These served humanity well for the next 200 or 300 years. Then, in the mid-1400s, while attempting to remove mud from his boots, pants and face, some vassal placed his stool against the wall. Accidentally he leant back, found the wall supporting his weight, and thought: ''My goodness, this is comfy.''

Once invented, the chair went nuts. It was the Gangnam Style of its day. It was the Gotye of 1515. It was almost as big as Twitter.

People couldn't wait to sit down. In Florence and Venice, they invented international trade just so they would have something to do while sitting around in their chairs. This form of business produced enormous profits, which were then reinvested in art by chair-appreciating families such as the Medicis, in turn creating the art of the Renaissance, much of which was best appreciated from the vantage point of a chair (except for the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which still required a good lie down.)

The word ''chair'' became so sexy it found itself adjoined to the powerful: the boss of any organisation was called the ''chairman'', as if the mere possession of a chair showed what a damn fine chap he must be. The phrase ''seat of power'' soon followed, as did ''throne'', a word defined as ''chair with gold stuck on it''.

In sport, by contrast, they began to say ''we benched him'' as if being forced to sit on a bench rather than a chair was the ultimate sign of failure.

Now, four centuries on, the trend is over. The chair is so yesterday. Stern-faced researchers say that every hour you typically spend in a chair removes years from your life. Some workplaces have mounted phones on the wall so employees must stand to take calls. In others, they insist people walk around during meetings.

Now researchers from the University of Queensland have unveiled an alarmed ''sitting pad'' that lets off a beep should an office worker be seated for too long.

The beep may work, although people may learn to ignore it. An unattractive farting noise may achieve a more consistent result. ''What's that sound from Tammy's cubicle? It's either a major intestinal crisis or she's been sitting for 35 minutes.''

At my own workplace, at which we present radio programs, we've been required to stand for the past four months. Presumably the motivation is to save on the cost of chairs. During this time I've lost five kilos, despite drinking more heavily due to the constant pain in my feet.

One the upside, I get to dance around the studio whenever the new Kate Miller-Heidke record is playing. On the downside, visiting guests have been known to recoil at the sight of my labrador-style dancing and run screaming from the studio.

The real issue: once employers start embracing the idea of the pre-1500s lifestyle, where will it end? Standing at work is not so bad, but I'd rather live without the rickets, witch-burning and mud.

Will the work canteen now be closed in favour of a zoo, in which one is armed with a tomahawk and sent out to fetch lunch for the boss? In order to save on emails, will language itself be banned, with staff required to make their feelings known through paleolithic drawings and occasional grunting?

And will the selection of the chief executive revert to a bloody battle with tridents and spears, played out in the area that once housed the photocopier, a device now moved to the basement to encourage more walking?

Let's refuse to go one step further. It's time to sit down and be counted.

Twitter: @rglover702


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