ABSTRACT
For women the household work is very time consuming and drudgery prone activity. They seldom realize the cost of energy and other physiological costs incurred due to wrong posture. Poor posture increases the physiological cost of work and energy expenditure. The static muscular efforts and incorrect posture if sustained for a long period of time can give rise to various types of health and musculoskeletal problems. Due to the dual responsibility at home as well as at work places outside the home, there is a greater pressure for productivity enhancement, quality work and profitability. Ergonomically sound kitchen workstation layout saves cooking time, distance travelled and postural change, therefore reduces the women drudgery. This paper presents the results of the study undertaken to do ergonomic assessment of kitchen workstation for females engaged in cooking activities, with objectives; to study the problems faced by women in existing workstation and to evaluate the design of selected work station in-terms of ergonomic standards. For this purpose a survey of eighty homemakers from Punjab state was conducted. Results revealed that in urban areas all respondents had closed, standing kitchen with either ‘L’ or ‘U’ shaped counters. Kitchen area ranged between 6.7 to 8.4 sq. m. Storage facility was found neglected in many of kitchens as it was beyond comfortable reach of homemakers. Most of the activities were performed in standing and sitting posture and very few activities like sieving where squatting posture (38.75 per cent) was adopted by the respondents. While performing the various kitchen activities mostly fatigue was felt in forearm and wrist.
