When purchasing an office chair, you will soon have to choose between mesh and foam models. We've tested a wide range of the best office chairs and as a general rule, we recommend a mesh chair for breathability and a foam chair for comfort. But does that make mesh the best option for workers?
Not necessarily, according to a report by researchers at the University of California, in association with Secretlab, the company behind our choice for the best gaming chair. In their study, the researchers compared a high-end mesh model to the foam-covered Secretlab Titan Evo.
The results suggest that mesh office chairs might not be the best in terms of ergonomics after all, as you've been led to believe.
Foam Office Chairs Versus Mesh Office Chairs
In an extensive eight-hour blind test, researchers found that both chairs showed no difference in comfort, aches, and overall fatigue—common complaints of chairs that are not ergonomically designed or made from inappropriate materials.
However, it seems that foam-covered office chairs may have the advantage when it comes to general computing tasks in the office or at home. Based on trends identified in the study, Secretlab's foam office chair showed greater signs of support and more positive results when sitting for extended periods.
“The rise of hybrid work has prompted everyday workers to invest in home office furniture. The search for a good chair often leads to choosing between mesh and foam chairs. “People are often drawn to mesh chairs, but our findings suggest that foam seats should not be categorically underestimated as a seating material suitable for extended periods of sitting,” said Melissa Afterman MS, CPE of the Ergonomics Laboratory. of Human Factors at the University of California. , Berkeley and San Francisco.
Meanwhile, Dr. Stuart McGill, distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Waterloo and ergonomics expert, warned that office chairs that are too soft “lack sufficient support to allow for the stress migrations and distributions critical to achieving comfort and resistance to injuries. In other words, when the chair does not support and distribute weight properly, greater pressure and stress is applied to the body.
In a study of stress migration, Dr. McGill noted: “Tissue loads must be migrated from one tissue to another to minimize the risk of a single tissue accumulating microtrauma. “The foam seat base of the Secretlab Titan Evo helps distribute pressure to body parts designed to bear weight.”
But the question of mesh versus foam might not be so clear. After all, Secretlab has spent a lot of time in R&D creating more comfortable and supportive high-density foam for office chairs, a process that goes far beyond dynamic lumbar support and pebble seat design, with the goal recognition from leading industry bodies like United States Ergonomics (and you can see what we think of those efforts in our Secretlab Titan review).
So it ultimately comes down to the type of office chair that best suits your workspace and workflow, and for that, mesh may not always be a better choice than foam.
