Cooking a simple meal involves a lot of movements that could strain the back. Lifting a pot filled with water to boil pasta. Standing at the counter chopping vegetables. Bending forward to put pans in the oven.
"When you're making soup, you're doing all kinds of gymnastics to get different batches of it in and out of the pot or blender," says Julie Bozo Cotte, 50, who has suffered from chronic back and neck pain for some 15 years. She loves cooking for friends, but says the condition has severely limited her home cooking.
