How’s The Posture??

3 weeks down of “home facilitated learning” and I’ve come to recognise three things.

Firstly; kids have a lot of screen-based work.
Secondly; kids eat a lot.
And lastly; kids don’t always have the best posture when it comes to working in front of screens or eating.

And it’s this posture that I would like to talk about.

After a long day of sitting in front of a screen doing her school tasks, I asked my daughter how she was going.

“Daddy, my eyes are really tired and I just feel yucky.”

My daughter is 8. She doesn’t use iPads or tablets or laptops or even watch that much TV, and she has started to struggle with this extra loading of screen time. Fortunately, we have the luxury of reducing her screen loading by providing her with printed notes to work with instead.

What about the “kids” who are 15, 16, 17 years old and in Years 10, 11 and 12?

One of the biggest pitfalls of excessive sitting duration, as is required for students attending High School, is the effect on posture. After a period of sitting, we tend to adopt a more “slouched” posture. This is usually even more pronounced when using a portable device such a laptop or iPad. This slouched posture is often linked with “forward head carriage” – a shifting of the head forward relative to the rest of the body.

But what are some of the effects of this posturing? The three big ones that are associated with poor posture are:

1. Headaches – “several pathways have been described to support the paradigm of spinal postures as a provocative trigger for episodic headache” (Mingels, Dankaerts, & Granitzer, 2019).

2. Neck pain – Adolescents who watched TV and used the desktop in the slump posture were up to four times more likely to experience chronic neck pain (Meziat-Filho, Azevedo, Coutinho, Mendonça, & Santos, 2017).

3. Anxiety – Adolescents with neck pain have higher anxiety levels than adolescents without neck pain (Andias & Silva, 2020).

That’s right, anxiety. In students who are already in a state of anxiety with upcoming exams, and all the disruptions going on with school, slouched posture increases the risk of developing further anxiety!

So can this be corrected? In 2017, researchers found simply sitting upright can have a positive effect on expressive behaviour or mood (Wilkes, Kydd, Sagar, & Broadbent, 2017). Subsequently, in 2019, researchers found those getting out and walking with an upright posture “showed significantly improved psychological states” (or an improved mood) as well as less sleepiness, less pain and marginally greater feelings of power than the slumped walking posture group (Hackford, Mackey, & Broadbent, 2019).

So have a look at your kid’s posture. How are they sitting? In normal circumstance, we would expect to see the ear sitting in line with the top of the shoulder. Do they start in an upright posture and then gradually sag down? This might indicate that they are fatigued and unable to sustain themselves.

You know what that means? It’s time for a break!

References:

Andias, R., & Silva, A. G. (2020). Psychosocial Variables and Sleep Associated With Neck Pain in Adolescents: A Systematic Review. Physical & Occupational Therapy In Pediatrics, 40, 168–191.

Hackford, J., Mackey, A., & Broadbent, E. (2019). The effects of walking posture on affective and physiological states during stress. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 62, 80–87.

Meziat-Filho, N., Azevedo, G. E. S., Coutinho, E. S., Mendonça, R., & Santos, V. (2017). Association between home posture habits and neck pain in High School adolescents. Journal of Back and Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation, 30, 467–475.

Mingels, S., Dankaerts, W., & Granitzer, M. (2019). Is There Support for the Paradigm ‘Spinal Posture as a Trigger for Episodic Headache’? A Comprehensive Review. Current Pain and Headache Reports, 23, 17.

Wilkes, C., Kydd, R., Sagar, M., & Broadbent, E. (2017). Upright posture improves affect and fatigue in people with depressive symptoms. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 54, 143–149.