
The popularity of the Squatty Potty - pmcpinto
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/nov/30/bowel-movement-change-the-way-you-poo-squatty-potty-toilet
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baxtr
If you don’t know the video, enjoy it here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbYWhdLO43Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbYWhdLO43Q)

It’s hilarious. Great, great marketing. On a more serious note, my experience
is that any other small chair will do the same trick.

~~~
the_clarence
If you look for squatty potty on amazon you can find alternatives that are
cheaper and look exactly the same. It’s going to be a tough market for them.
There is nothing they can really patent here.

~~~
siruncledrew
Pretty much any stool that raises the height of the pooper's feet will work.

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wawhal
Yes there is a significant advantage in bowel movement if you use squatty
potty.

Moving to a normal chair toilet from a squat toilet
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squat_toilet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squat_toilet))
was a hell for me. Chair toilets just don't feel right and comfortable to poop
from if one has used a squat toilet all their life. Squatty potty hits a nice
middle ground because:

1\. It is better than the chair toilet in terms of comfort of bowel movement.

2\. It is better than the squat toilet in terms of the extreme stress on the
knees

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LaGrange
> 2\. It is better than the squat toilet in terms of the extreme stress on the
> knees"

Yeah, the first thing that worry me, when I read about squat toilets, is
accessibility. Basically, if I were to get a house and install one of those,
how much would 80 year old me (presuming I live that long, hah?) hate the 37
year old me every time they had to poop?

Apparently people often don't really consider that, say, building houses with
stairs that are nice when you're 20, but become hard to navigate later on, and
if you end up becoming a wheelchair user, may be impossible to retrofit with a
lift.

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alistairSH
Much of the developing world still squats, not just over their toilet, but
also for sitting/resting in open spaces. I'd bet excessive knee stress is a
"Western" thing, caused by poor joint flexibility and poor core strength.

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eightysixfour
A lot of the difference is ankle mobility, westerners don’t sit in the resting
squat position often and their ankle joints have less range of motion as a
result.

Many westerner’s heel will lift off the ground attempting an Asian/Slavic
squat.

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ghthor
Which puts a lot more stress on the knee joint. It's also hip mobility that
causes this, people and unwilling or unable to press there abdomen against
there thigh, which is much more supportive and helps get into a proper squat.

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IncRnd
You might want to take a look at one of those addon bidet...

Why is the arse the only place that, if covered in fecal matter, doesn't get
the benefit of water? Most people, if they get poop on their arms or torso,
normally clean them with more than just a thin piece of paper.

Life without a squatty potty or bidet seems like it would be awfully
primitive.

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ryanmercer
>Why is the arse the only place that, if covered in fecal matter, doesn't get
the benefit of water?

Have you ever used a public toilet in the US? Put a bidet in a public toilet,
someone will have gum and/or feces on the dispenser before the day is over
purely out of malice.

As far as in the homes, it's a plumbing issue. You're either going to have to
have to monkey with toilet feed lines yourself, which are often cheap fittings
that seize and break, or call a plumber to come out or buy some tank system
that requires a powered pump which has to be plugged in. Then of course learn
how to use the thing. Or, you could pick up some charmin every time you go to
the grocery and bathe regularly.

Americans are catching on to wet wipes, give it a few more decades and squirt-
gun-butt-cleaning will catch on.

I've never seen a bidet in person. Not once in my entire life. In fact, the
only time I've ever seen a bidet is in Crocodile Dundee and another film.

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Symbiote
My wealthy American relative had bidets installed in the bathrooms of his
multimillion-dollar houses.

He wasn't surprised that 12-year-old me was unfamiliar with the device, but he
was surprised that journalists from interior design magazines hadn't seen them
before. (This was the 1990s, things may have moved on.)

They've fallen out of fashion in Britain, according to [1] they're replaced
with larger showers or extra sinks.

[1]
[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/news/8080653/De...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/news/8080653/Death-
of-the-bidet.html)

~~~
tunesmith
That confused me briefly - like, people use an extra sink as a bidet? Turns
out that what has fallen out of fashion are the entirely separate bidet-only
commodes. I've more recently only heard "bidet" in the context of something
that is built in (or attached) to the regular toilet, that's what is
increasing in popularity.

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nwah1
People talking about this changing their life sounds silly, but then I
remember that I feel the same way after having bought the bidet attachment
called Tushy.

[https://hellotushy.com/](https://hellotushy.com/)

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dragosmocrii
how is this more efficient at cleaning than running water, soap and some
rubbing? I mean even when you go to a touchless carwash, it still leaves
dirt..

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nwah1
I think it is one of those things that you need to experience yourself in
order to make an informed decision.

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jessaustin
I'm not a short person (5' 11.5"), but ISTM public toilets in USA have
continually grown in height. I simply can't get comfortable on them. Either
I'm barely on the front edge, which entails clearance issues, or my feet
aren't flat on the floor. I realize that some of this is from misguided
handicap requirements, but if we don't get a handle on this issue toilet
heights will soon become completely untenable. People will start carrying
around the item described in TFA just so they can get on and off the pot
without injuring themselves.

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55555
My understanding is that it's due to handicap requirements. I'm 183cm (6 feet)
and find them to be always too tall. Especially in fast food restaurants or
other large chains. I think it's because the elderly and infirm can have
difficulty standing from a squat position, so they make the toilet extremely
tall and put a bar along the wall so you can help lift yourself with your arm.
But this is the wrong solution.

~~~
jessaustin
USA handicap requirements benefit someone, but I'm not sure it's the
handicapped. The Everest & Jennings wheelchair was designed in 1932, but
somehow that's what we've standardized on...

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porphyrogene
> USA handicap requirements benefit someone, but I'm not sure it's the
> handicapped.

In general terms that is a difficult statement to defend. The ADA goes to much
greater lengths than setting a required toilet height.

For the record it seems that an ADA-compliant toilet (of which only one is
required per facility) is 17"-19" from the floor to the rim of the bowl.
That's not exactly a tall seat. I think that blame is being misplaced on
accessibility measures, especially considering that no one had mentioned what
the requirements actually are.

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peter303
Its a function you have to do 30,000+ times in your life. People in the
Western world are too shy to talk about. The Gates Foundation has cheap modern
toilets at the top of its list in improving the Welfare of Mankind. So many
painful and fatal diseases are through bad pooping.

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pgt
You get most of the effect by doing 20 air squats right before going. Like a
potato gun.

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Someone
If the main difference is the angle between hips and upper legs, isn’t it just
as effective to lean your torso forwards, say by resting your elbows on your
thighs? (There would be a difference in the direction of gravity, but I doubt
that matters much)

Does anybody even sit straight up on a toilet?

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tokyodude
Living in Japan there are plenty of opportunities to use squat toilets. I have
personally never found it easier to get stuff to come out on a squat toilet
over a sit toilet so I'm kind of finding it hard to buy into the claims that
it's easier.

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dwighttk
Seems like marketing to me. But perhaps it helps some people and not others?

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the_clarence
Perhaps you guys have a different system? Most people will find out that
pooping in a squatting toilets is the easiest thing in the world even when you
are constipated.

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dwighttk
If I remember, I'll give it a shot next time... I'd guess I'm constipated like
1x/year or so.

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ryanmercer
I bought 2 different sized ones a couple of years ago, found neither did
anything beneficial for me and in fact both were quite uncomfortable to use.
I've squat and defecated in dug holes while backwoods probably hundreds of
times in my life, the squatty potty experience didn't begin to come close to
replicating the experience, they're just a gimmick. Toilets aren't universal
heights, people have different leg lengths, some people are skinny, some
people are fat. Gimmick.

I think they're popular because they're different and have a lot of 'oh man
it's not natural to poop like that' which draws in the paleo-types and their
unicorn alone probably moved a lot of units.

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RandallBrown
I got a squatty potty in a white elephant gift exchange at work. I liked it. I
wouldn't say it was life changing, but it made going to the bathroom easier
enough that it felt worth it.

Sure, it's not as good as a full squat in the woods, but it's more than a
gimmick.

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fouc
I think the biggest advantage of squat toilets is that the users end up
developing strong legs and balance. They develop the ability to be able to sit
in a squat comfortably. It's great to have a free in-built chair for when you
need to take a break.

~~~
wawhal
> I think the biggest advantage of squat toilets is that the users end up
> developing strong legs and balance

On the contrary, they kill your knees. Sure one can feel nice about them in
their youth, but it is pretty hard to use squat toilets in and after your late
60s.

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fouc
You can see many elderly chinese in their 60s and 70s still squatting in the
parks. When they're no longer able to do that, they switch to folding chairs
to act as the toilet seat.

A full deep squat doesn't put the knee under as much tension as doing a half
squat (or perpendicular squat).

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remlov
A thousand times this. Having read "Starting Strength" pretty much put all the
FUD about squats and how it's bad for your knees to rest for me.

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brianwawok
Squatting and running. Both great for building strong knees but trashed by
couch justifiers.

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clueless123
If you are prone to hemorrhoids.. this is a must have! Don't ask me how I know
;)

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ZoomStop
They write up a 4,000+ word article on this product yet don't mention the
exposure it got on US prime time with Shark Tank. I think that is where many
people first saw this product.

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thomas93
I believe they do - 'This January, after Squatty Potty LLC hit $33m in annual
revenues, the business channel CNBC, which helped bring the footstool to fame
through its US version of Dragon’s Den, hailed the device as a “cult
juggernaut”.'

~~~
ZoomStop
My apologies, you are correct.

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vbuwivbiu
wait a minute, wouldn't simply leaning forward chest on knees be sufficient to
get that angle ?

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black6
I bought one for my father years ago after reading about it on a blog usually
devoted to firearms[0]. My father used to remark on how he always took a more
satisfying dump when he had to squat out in the woods while hunting.

I do enjoy using it when I visit the old homestead, but not to the point where
I've purchased one for my own bathrooms.

0: kenthompson.us which now appears to simply be a link aggregator

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new_guy
At the risk of TMI I've always gone this way, it's a lot more natural because
your colon/stomach isn't all twisted like it is when you sit.

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gmoore
is there any science behind this? or is it all just 'personal experience'?

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Zooper
Go camping for an extended period of time, where you are squatting over holes
in the ground. Squatting is how we shat before toilets, and it's definitely
easier, quicker, less stressful on rectum. I don't own one of these, but
immediately understood the benefit. Really, since the toilet came after this,
the onus of proof is on the sitting toilet. As an interesting side-note,
squatting births are purported as being easier as well.

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sicnus
> a double transubstantiation, Christ into the communion wafer, and thence
> into dung.

LOL. Poetry.

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nxc18
Just try not to shit on the seat please. The other people who shit sitting
down will appreciate it, as will the custodians.

I bring this up only because I always wondered how people miss such a huge
target - it seems squatting is a reasonable way to make that happen.

Not dissing squatting, just a PSA to please be considerate.

Also, bidet attachments are friggin awesome if you want to try that
alternative. I'm on vacation now and hate that I don't have it.

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hannasanarion
? Your butt doesn't leave the seat with a squatty potty. It's not like people
are suspended a foot above the toilet, it just raises your knees a bit.

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nxc18
You're right I was overtired and was thinking of the people who actually squat
over the toilet. Maybe the squatty potty would actually be the solution in
this case. My comment still stands: if you're using the toilet in a non-
traditional way (or even just the usual way), pleas don't deposit shit _on_
the seat, it's nasty.

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jessaustin
If one isn't sitting on the seat, the seat should be up. I think I learned
this as a 3yo...

