I am just too happy that there are science writers who are far braver than I am when it comes to experimenting and writing about certain intimacies that science has ventured into studying. I once watched this guy on a science show who tried to grow tapeworms in his stomach as an experiment. He was successful in breeding such a yardage in terms of the tapeworm that after that, I had trouble eating fettuccine. This one I am tackling this week is not as parasitic in nature but it is as engaging and will make your tummies churn — literally. This is how I felt when I read the article of Daniel Lametti of Slate.com on the benefits of squatting versus sitting in the toilet in his article last Aug. 26 entitled “Don’t Just Sit There!”
The verdict: his usual 10-minute routine dropped to just a minute and he says apart from the danger of losing your balance while perched on your private station, he might just stick to squatting.
Lametti cited evidence from several studies and it would seem like generally, squatting really does configure your insides, particularly the one that matters — that junction between the rectum and anal canal — in such a way that it straightens up and allows freer passage of shall we say, the goods to down under, like a mini C5. He also cited a study which found that the squatting subjects were, shall we say, more easily moved, than the ones who were seated. Squatting appeared to be particularly beneficial to people with hemorrhoids who experience swollen veins in the abdominal silk road. I will not trouble you too much with the medical details of these studies, which you should know, even includes a certain angle in the long abdominal passage which changes depending on whether you squat or sit. What was most revealing is that researchers in Japan last year even found a way to look at what happens inside your tummy if you squat or sit and they did this with X-ray video. How the subjects were able to do their business in the toilet knowing that they were being X-rayed as they did so, should, I think be the subject of another study on “how you ignore scientists peering at your insides when you are in the toilet” or something like that.
The first time I saw a squat toilet was on my first trip to Japan right out of college. I have always been a clumsy girl and I was more scared of dropping or slipping my things, clothes, shoes or any other appendage I have, like any of my legs, into the hole. Objectively, it did seem more sanitary because you do not have to worry about the integrity of the toilet seat. There was also a lot more squat toilets than “western toilets” so when I really have to go, the last thing on my mind is being excited about options as whether to go “eastern” or “western.”
Lametti also put the global toilet scene perspective for us: there are 1.2 billion people in the world who squat not because they are aware of the benefits of assuming a certain intestinal angle for quick comfort but because they do not have toilets at all. Somewhere in Nepal way back when I was young and adventurous enough not to ask if there would be standard toilets in my itinerary, I had to go down a cliff for my business, in some sort of three-posted area flimsily covered by sacks. One fraying sack flipped open and shut with the wind. When the wind blew, a goat, which was only about a yard away, stared at the whole enterprise. That, I think is akin to the experience of those subjects who were X-rayed as they did their thing.
I usually end my columns with some sort of hope that the column was able to illuminate bits of nature once dim in your understanding. But for this one, I only hope you have had your lunch already before your started reading it. Or if not, that it is not only fettuccine or sausage on the menu.
* * *
For comments, e-mail dererumnaturastar@hotmail.com