Safety Begins at Kitchen: HFE Perspective

Abstract

AbstractIn India as per available government data, every minute a fellow citizen gets killed in accidents. And it is well known that unsafe human actions are directly or indirectly responsible for about 98% of the accidents. It will not be far-fetched to mention that being physically, mentally and socially well, which definitely inter alia requires a well-planned and well-cooked proper diet, helps reduce chances of accidents. As it is said charity should begin at home, it may be mentioned that safety perspective should start focusing from our own household kitchens, which has chances of fire, electrical accidents, burn, slip, trip, fall, cut injuries, MSDs and so on; being mentally alert and a quick response during accidental emergency are of utmost importance to reduce the chance of accident occurring, and even if it occurs, a prompt and appropriate action may lower the degree of severity. If the kitchen is properly designed, arranged and the individuals, mostly women, working there act accordingly, undue risks can be avoided easily. On the other hand, it has been found that practicing traditional Indian dance like Bharatanatyam dancing (BD) is beneficial for improving the response and reaction time of the individuals. An attempt, in this backdrop, has been made from ergonomic perspective to assess the physical fitness, mental alertness and awareness about hazards in kitchen, of the homemakers practicing BD and daily spending a significant time in kitchen, also the physical infrastructure of the domestic kitchens. It has been found that individuals practicing the BD regularly have significantly better physical fitness in terms of cardiorespiratory fitness indices and mental alertness in terms of reaction time compared to the individuals of similar age and socioeconomic status but not practicing any form of structured regular physical activity.KeywordsDomestic safetyHand toolsAnthropometryBharatanatyam danceChoice reaction timeBengali homemakersNutritional issuesProper diet