The Startling Truth About Why You Should Sit Up Straight

Good posture is pretty darn important.
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Text neck got you down? We don't blame you -- having good posture is really important.

As this new TED-Ed video says, your posture is the "foundation for every movement your body makes." Your posture also has a lot to do with how well your body adapts to the stresses placed on it, like gravity, carrying weight and sitting in weird positions.

So it makes sense that poor posture is pretty bad news. According to the video, poor posture inflicts extra wear and tear on joints and ligaments, increases the likelihood of accidents, makes organs like your lungs less efficient --hunching over can affect your lung capacity by as much as 30 percent -- and is linked with scoliosis, tension headaches and back pain. And between looking down at computer screens at work and hunching over to stare at our phones, poor posture is on the rise. 

 We know, we know. Enough scary details. Let's talk about what good posture looks like. If you're someone with good posture, your vertebrae are stacked up nicely and your body should look like this from the side:

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TED-Ed

If you have a sneaking suspicion that your spine does not look like this, you can take steps to improve your posture. Make sure your neck is vertical while you're sitting (you want your computer screen to be at eye level), and keep your knees at a right angle with your feet flat on the floor. Try sleeping on your side with a pillow between your knees, and make  sure to exercise -- keeping your muscles moving allows you to use them more easily throughout the day. And if you're worried about your posture, talk to your doctor. 

 Also on HuffPost:

Studies About Kids And Technology
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Source: Huffington Post (to read the actual study, visit Pediatrics -- subscription required)Gist: "New research out today by Dr Christakis finds that putting our time and energy into working to improve what our children watch, not just how much they watch, can have a positive impact on their behavior -- even for children as young as 3 years of age." (credit:Alamy)
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Source: Common Sense MediaGist: "While longitudinal research does allow us to speak in terms of a 'causal' relationship, it is probably more accurate and useful to think about media violence as a 'risk factor' rather than a 'cause' of violence — one variable among many that increases the risk of violent behavior among some children." (credit:Alamy)
January 2013: Screen Time Not Linked To Kids' Physical Activity(03 of17)
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Source: Reuters (to read the actual study, visit JAMA Pediatrics -- log-in required)Gist: "[R]esearchers said the new study backs up earlier findings showing too much screen time and not enough exercise may be separate issues that parents and schools need to address independently." (credit:Alamy)
December 2012: How Families Interact on Facebook (04 of17)
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Source: FacebookGist: "We investigated anonymized and automatically processed posts and comments by people self-identified as parents and children to understand how conversation patterns with each other might be a bit different from those with their other friends." (credit:Alamy)
November 2012: Parents, Teens, and Online Privacy (05 of17)
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Source: Pew Research CenterGist: "Most parents of teenagers are concerned about what their teenage children do online and how their behavior could be monitored by others. Some parents are taking steps to observe, discuss, and check up on their children’s digital footprints." (credit:Shutterstock)
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Source: C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's HealthGist: "In this Poll, nearly two out of three adults expressed strong support for proposed COPPA updates, including requiring apps designed for kids to confirm that users are at least 13 and prohibiting apps from collecting personal information from users under age 13." (credit:Alamy)
November 2012: The Online Generation Gap(07 of17)
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Source: Family Online Safety InstituteGist: "These surveys indicate that teens’ concerns about their online safety parallel parents’ concerns more closely than parents realize and that many teens are taking steps to protect their privacy and personal information. Nonetheless, teens suggest that parents are not as informed about what their teens do online as parents think they are, and some teens are taking risks by providing personal information to strangers online." (credit:Shutterstock)
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Source: Common Sense MediaGist: "America’s teachers -- whether they are long-time classroom veterans or young, tech-savvy ones, at wealthy schools or low-income schools, public or private, elementary or high school -- surface relatively consistent concerns: Students are having issues with their attention span, writing, and face-to-face communication, and, in the experience of teachers, children’s media use is contributing to the problem. On the plus side, teachers find that young people’s facility with media is helping them find information quickly and multitask more effectively." (credit:Shutterstock)
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Source: Pew Research CenterGist: “The volume of texting among teens has risen from 50 texts a day in 2009 to 60 texts for the median teen text user. The frequency of teens' phone chatter with friends - on cell phones and landlines - has fallen. But the heaviest texters are also the heaviest talkers with their friends.” (credit:Alamy)
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Source: PediatricsGist: "There was no evidence that children receiving the active video games were more active in general, or at anytime, than children receiving the inactive video games." (credit:Alamy)
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Source: PediatricsGist: “This updated policy statement provides further evidence that media—both foreground and background—have potentially negative effects and no known positive effects for children younger than 2 years. Thus, the AAP reaffirms its recommendation to discourage media use in this age group. This statement also discourages the use of background television intended for adults when a young child is in the room.” (credit:Alamy)
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Source: Common Sense MediaGist: "Nine-month-olds spend nearly an hour a day watching television or DVDs, 5-year-olds are begging to play with their parents’ iPhones, and 7-year-olds are sitting down in front of a computer several times a week to play games, do homework, or check out how their avatars are doing in their favorite virtual worlds. Television is still as popular as ever, but reading may be beginning to trend downward. Having an accurate understanding of the role of media in children’s lives is essential for all of those concerned about promoting healthy child development: parents, educators, pediatricians, public health advocates, and policymakers, to name just a few." (credit:Shutterstock)
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Source: The Huffington PostGist: “[E]xperts have some serious concerns regarding the methods and conclusions of the first study evaluating the connection between cell phone radiation and brain cancer in children and teens. Not only was the study flawed, they note, but it was also financially supported by the cell phone industry.” (credit:Alamy)
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Source: PediatricsGist: “This study found that greater television and computer use was related to greater psychological difficulties, independent of gender, age, level of deprivation, pubertal status, and objectively measured physical activity andsedentary time.” (credit:Alamy)
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Source: PediatricsGist: "Viewing television and playing video games each are associated with increased subsequent attention problems in childhood. It seems that a similar association among television, video games, and attention problems exists in late adolescence and early adulthood." (credit:Alamy)
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Source: Pew Research CenterGist: “Fully two-thirds of teen texters say they are more likely to use their cell phones to text their friends than talk to them to them by cell phone.” (credit:Alamy)
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Source: Kaiser Family FoundationGist: “Today, 8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week). And because they spend so much of that time ‘media multitasking’ (using more than one medium at a time), they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes (10:45) worth of media content into those 7½ hours.” (credit:Shutterstock)

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