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"A high chair is a piece of furniture used for feeding older babies and younger toddlers. The seat is raised a fair distance from the ground, so that a person of adult height may spoon-feed the child comfortably from a standing position (hence the name). It often has a wide base to increase stability. There is a tray which is attached to the arms of the high chair, which allows the adult to place the food on it for either the child to pick up and eat or for the food to be spoon-fed to them. A booster chair is meant to be used with a regular chair to boost the height of a child sufficiently. Some boosters are a simple monolithic piece of plastic. Others are more complex and are designed to fold up and include a detachable tray.

Rarely, a chair can be suspended from the edge of the table avoiding the need for an adult chair or a high chair.

Etymology
The term high chair comes from the adjective high coming from how a toddler sitting in one would be high in the air. The first recorded use of the word can be seen in 1848.

History
17th & 18th Century

While Nanna Ditzel is usually seen as the first high chair designer, it has a history that goes decades in the past. The first example of a high chair can be seen through a walnut high chair dated from the 17th century. This design only featured a wooden bar to keep the child secure and notably has a lot of similar design elements to more modern high chairs. Not every past high chair shared this design though as seen through an 18th century model which emulated general chairs. This chair shares the wooden material but notably has a much less secure design for the infant or child seated in it.

1900s

1940 Gerrit Rietveld's Zig-Zag High Chair was created. Interestingly, this chair has a more geometric design which originates from a desire to create a chair out of folding a single material. Despite the more odd design the Zig-Zag High Chair functions as well as any other past high chair with even a tray for eating or playing.

1955 Nanna Ditzel, Danish designer, created the Children's High Chair. This design notably is much rounder and less chair like than past iterations. It also has a heavy focus on keeping Infants seated in it secure and unable to slip out easily.

1972 showcases a notable design with Peter Opsvik's Tripp Trapp Chair. Inspired by the Zig-Zag High Chair, the Tripp Trapp takes the bent design and adds an adjustable seat and footrest to make a versatile chair. This allows the chair to not only be used by infants and children, but older children could even use the chair by adjusting the seat or removing the footrest.

2000s - Present By the 2000s high chairs have become much more mass produced with many companies producing high chairs embracing a plastic design. This resulted in the plastic high chair becoming the most common type of high chair on the market.

2005 Maartje Steenkamp created a very interactive high chair design with the Mother-Child Dining chair. This high chair is actually a fusion of both a high chair and an adult chair which resulted in a far more dynamic way to feed your child. It not only has a minimalistic design to allow the child comfort, but it focuses on making the feeding experience far more intimate then a general feeding.

Potential accidents
Due to the height from the ground and lack of restraints in some designs, a high chair could result in child-related head trauma. Lack of supervision while a child is sitting in a high chair can also lead to potential harm.

Safety standards
The EU standard EN 14988:2017+A1:2020 has been published in 2020 by the European Committee for Standardization. The US standard 83 FR 28358 was proposed in 2018 and later officially ruled in 2019 by the Consumer Product Safety Commission

Highchair Designers

 * Nanna Ditzel
 * Gerrit Rietveld
 * Peter Opsvik