19 February 2022 | New Scientist | 43an odd angle can cause temporary muscle
soreness due to overactivity in certain
muscles or a decrease in oxygen to tissues,
the link between posture and longer-term
pain is highly contentious.Pain in the neck
While some, often smaller, studies do show
an apparent link, larger, more rigorous
analyses don’t. “There’s very little evidence
that our regular posture can predict whether
we’re going to get chronic pain,” says Straker.
Other researchers go even further.
“It’s not that there isn’t much evidence
to link bad posture with causing long-term
pain, there’s none,” says O’Sullivan.
For instance, a 2021 review of 653 relevant
papers by researchers at Monash University
in Melbourne, Australia, concluded that
there was no reliable evidence to determine
that specific driving postures were associated
with lower back pain. Meanwhile, a 2017
study by researchers at the University of
Southern California comparing 67 people
with shoulder pain against 68 people
who were pain free, found no difference
between the habitual shoulder posture
of the two groups. The list goes on.
For Karen Richards, also at Curtin University,
the lack of evidence linking posture and pain
became apparent after a number of parents
brought their teenage children into her clinic
with concerns over their posture. None of
them had pain, says Richards, and it became
clear that there wasn’t much evidence on the
possible pitfalls of their posture to give her
cause to intervene.
To address this academic void, Richards
conceived a project in which 686 17-year-olds
were assessed. All were part of a long-term
investigation of the role that early events have
on later life. Each person was categorised for
their natural sitting neck posture – upright
neck and body; slumped chest with head
jutting forward; erect chest with forward head;
and an intermediate position with a gentle
spinal curvature – as measured by body
sensors. Five years later, the team recorded
whether each participant had experienced
neck pain that persisted for three months“ A lot of what we think
of as good posture is
about what is deemed
elegant and attractive” >
options, from sitting bolt upright through
to a pronounced slump with the chin jutting
out. Around half thought that an upright
lower back with a more relaxed upper trunk
was best, but about a third thought that
a forward tilt from the hips with the spine
held in a straight line was optimal.
What’s more, while we all have views on
what constitutes good posture, we rarely
live up to them. This was demonstrated last
year by a team of researchers led by Vasileios
Korakakis at the Aspetar Orthopaedic and
Sports Medicine Hospital, Doha, Qatar, in a
study of 100 healthy people. Most naturally
sat in a mild slump, but when asked to adopt
an optimal sitting posture, all sat up much
straighter – the women more so than men.
But is slouching actually causing us any
harm? Search online and you will find
numerous websites outlining how “bad”
postures lead to neck, shoulder and back
pain, along with techniques to fix them.
There is even a UK National Health Service
web page dedicated to common posture
mistakes and the problems they can cause.
If only things were that simple. For a start,
although sitting with your neck or spine at