If you’ve got the Widettes coming for dinner, you’re all set! IKEA Designers have redesigned the HENRIKSDAL dining chair making the formerly slender seat wider to allow for more ample bottoms.  The increase is 44% – that’s the same as the increase in Medicare Costs due to fraud and abuse. Egads! Are we really that fat?

Turns out…yes.  It’s my theory that ‘big American furniture’ has less to do with ‘big American houses’ and more to do with ‘big American arses.’  Or maybe it’s ‘big American egos,’  but anyway it’s not just in the  US where obesity rates run to 23.9%¹ that seats are swelling; the Swedes who are more stereotypically portrayed as tall, slender athletes (or Vikings) have an overall obesity rate of 9.4%¹.  With obesity rates reaching epidemic proportions worldwide, it’s not a big surprise that furniture designers are responding with larger furniture to accommodate larger bottoms.

Look for the perfect chair to suit your seat: Choose your IKEA Chairs, Loveseats, Sofas and Sofa-Beds using the IKEA Living Room Style Selector.

What’s Big

New for 2010 - IKEA HOVÅS Sofa in Källvik light green

Just 5 years ago, in the 2005 IKEA Catalog, the Klippan sofa was 70 7/8″ wide which is +1″ over the KLIPPAN offered in the 2001 catalog. Now it is available in a generous gluteal arrangement for four at over 90″ wide!

KLIPPAN is celebrating 30 years this year, along with the Billy Bookcase (Look for a special event to Celebrate Billy’s Birthday coming soon!).  See IKEA KLIPPAN: Thirty Years of Durable Style and IKEA KLIPPAN Sofa: Child-Friendly, Durable, Easily Refurbished and Green?

Provided you don’t invite the Widettes, you’ll be able to invite all your friends to celebrate the birth of Billy if you’ve got a STOCKHOLM sofa, which at 93 1/4″ claims to seat 3.5 (I think this converts to 3.0 US).  The new for 2010 HOVÅS sofa is a ginormous 95 5/8″ but inexplicably is not offered on the IKEA UK site.

The End

I recently got to enjoy some old Saturday Night Live episodes and laughed my considerable behind off! Check out Saturday Night Live – The Complete Fourth Season, Episode 9 for Dan Akroyd, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Elliot Gould and Jane Curtain as the Widettes.  Maybe you’ll laugh yours off too!

1. Bassett, Jr., D. R., Pucher, J., Buehler, R., Thompson, D.L., and Crouter, S.E.  (2008). Walking, Cycling, and Obesity Rates in Europe, North America, and Australia. Journal of Physical Activity and Health, 5, 795-814.

Tags: BILLY bookcase, HENRIKSDAL, HOVAS, IKEA designers, IKEA Furniture, KLIPPAN, STOCKHOLM

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 at 3:18 PM by Susan and is filed under IKEA Furniture, Product Information. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.