Rethinking the effectiveness of defecation postures and practices: it’s not what you do it’s the way that you do it!

Charles Edgar; M. Sohail; Sue Cavill

doi:10.3362/1756-3488.17-00019

Rethinking the effectiveness of defecation postures and practices: it’s not what you do it’s the way that you do it!

This paper reports on a piece of research to investigate the effectiveness of defecation postures and anal cleansing method. The research compared how long each bowel movement took on a pedestal toilet with and without a footstool. Volunteers were asked to compare the two positions for speed as well as stress/strain on the body. The effectiveness of the method of anal cleansing was also rated by a subset of the volunteers. Although the study was conducted using volunteers in the UK, the findings have international relevance for sanitation marketing and hygiene promotion programmes.

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