For tens of thousands of years the reality
of human existence was discomfort. It is only in recent years—evolutionary
speaking—that homo sapiens have been able to kick back and relax. In an excerpt
from his new book, The Story of the
Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease, evolutionary
biologist Daniel Lieberman explains why this new phenomenon of being
comfortable is hazardous to your health.
Link.Comprehensive analyses of the incidence of back pain around the world consistently find that back pain is twice as high in developed versus less developed countries; further, within low-income countries, the incidence is roughly twice as high in urban versus rural areas. For example, lower back pain afflicts about 40 percent of farmers in rural Tibet but 68 percent of sewing machine operators in India. Neither of these populations lounges about in La-Z-Boys, but a general trend is that people who frequently carry heavy loads and do other “back-breaking” work get fewer back injuries than those who sit in chairs for hours bent over a machine.
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