Slouching - Shame on You

Growing up, I went to a Christian missionary school. One of the amazing things about the school was the sense of discipline. Cut your hair short, keep your fingernails clean. Polish your shoes.

But we were also forbidden to slouch.

It did not matter whether we were sitting in class, assembled in the playground, or walking the hallowed grounds of the school. Slouching was forbidden.

It wasn’t that difficult, to be honest. We had no screens or monitors. They came much later. We had to look up at the teacher as they taught us geography or literature.

Frankly, even the reading we did at home occurred either while lying down or on a reading chair.

Then things changed. Computers, laptops and e-readers came into our lives. I don’t blame these alone. The shame of slouching also went out of the window.

There were no longer strict priests shaming us for our posture.

I see my son bent over his robotics kit every day. He sits on his haunches, squatting admirably. Yet, he is bent over, hunched as he attempts to build another flying robot.

In another era, his actions would be worthy of an earful. I have to ask him politely to straighten his back and rediscover his spine.

He is in good company. Most of us hunch and slouch.

Slouching puts pressure on your respiratory tract. We can measure how much.

The effect is a reduction in your sniff nasal inspiratory pressure (SNIP), a measure of your muscle strength of your respiratory tract.

Slouching resulted in a reduction of 8.7 cmH2O measured in centimeters of H2O. So when my teachers were asking me to sit straight or walk erect, it wasn’t just about manners.

It was about life.

Isn’t it time we bring back the shame of slouching into our culture?

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