Posture Problems

In a 3 On Your Side Health Report, we live in a world that revolves around technology, whether we're playing video games or working on a computer.  But NEWS 3'S Tristan Tully shows us these things we do every day could cause a lot of problems with our posture.

People nowadays including our co-workers here at WSAV, sometimes spend all day on the computer, something that is potentially very harmful to their posture, and in turn, their over-all health.

Angela Thomas, Director, Candler's Physical and Occupational Therapy Department:

"Anytime that you're in one position for long periods of time, you tend to get lazy with your posture and you let gravity pull on you and that causes stress because that puts the body into positions of abnormal posture."

    

Angela Thomas tells us that being in front of a screen for hours on end creates problems and abnormalities in our bone structure, “Forward head posture is actually something that predisposes problems with a neck injury and if you are pushing yourself in to get closer to a video game or pushing yourself closer to a computer, it gives you that forward head posture and that becomes problematic."

And the neck isn't the only part of the body in danger, "Disk injury and problems continue to get worse and they actually don't peak until about age 45 but it's sort of one of those straw that breaks the camel's back sort of issues, so what you do when you are younger is - definitely impacts what happens later on in life."

Things you can do to prevent yourself from having these sorts of problems later in life include things like sports, or outdoor activities.  Aside from just video games, it's key to monitor how long you stay in one position, "It goes back to that same old adage of everything in moderation and if you are sitting for hours on end and you are not getting up and stretching and moving around, you will end up with positional and postural problems."

Angela also tells us slouched sitting ranks third in activities that can hurt your back.  The first is bending and twisting.  The second is bending forward