SA: Self image examined in posture study

AAP General News (Australia)
04-14-1999
SA: Self image examined in posture study

ADELAIDE, April 14 AAP - The role self-image plays in a teenager's posture is to be
assessed in a long-term study by researchers at the University of South Australia.

The study, conducted by the university's Centre for Allied Health Research, will track 445
high school students from Adelaide for five years from Year 8 to Year 12.

The students will be measured, photographed and weighed as well as undergoing tests for
flexibility, coordination, balance, muscle strength and endurance.

Students will also answer questionnaires and have their school bags measured and weighed.

Research assistant Tiffany Gill said self-image was very important to teenagers.

She said the study, which she believed to be a world first and following an earlier study
conducted at the university last year, would investigate self image and physical activity,
including whether playing sport improved students' confidence and therefore self-image and
posture.

The hypothesis was that poor self-image led to poor posture.

"If you feel down and depressed you stand with your shoulders down and curved and if you
feel good you stand tall," Ms Gill said.

"Hopefully, by the end we'll have some sort of idea of the things that affect kids' posture
and then hopefully we can make some suggestions about how kids should be encouraged to stand
or encourage them to play sport and feel better about themselves."

She said that finding ways to combat poor posture in young people could help prevent neck
and back pain in teenagers and adulthood, saving health costs and lost work days.

"If you've got it starting when they're young and in their teens, what hope have they got
as adults," she said.

AAP vm/it

KEYWORD: POSTURE

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