Westerners have forgotten how to squat, and it's causing health problems.
There’s also a cultural mention of both Yoga and “grounding”, though not quite specific, and this is the third reference to the idea of “grounding” that I’ve heard in the past two weeks. I suspect that is becoming a “thing” now too.
I’d love to read some of the evolutionary and physiological studies about this phenomenon. This particular quote was about as close to a scientific reference as there was:
Every joint in our body has synovial fluid in it. This is the oil in our body that provides nutrition to the cartilage,â Jam says. âTwo things are required to produce that fluid: movement and compression. So if a joint doesnât go through its full rangeâif the hips and knees never go past 90 degreesâthe body says âIâm not being usedâ and starts to degenerate and stops the production of synovial fluid.
Until this article I had forgotten about squatting, something I did often growing up in the West Indies. Perhaps something for me to rediscover.