Many studies of school students indicate that poor seating and poor sitting habits, and a lack of exercise can prove detrimental to the health of students. Sitting for long periods is harmful to one’s health and most times that is compounded by poor ergonomics leading to poor posture and back problems. Seating classrooms is often designe with the philosophy of “one-size-fits-all”. Often students of all heights must adapting to identical chairs. This can leading to poor ergonomics and posture; and they perpetuate long hours of sitting at a young age.
Research shows people leading the modern lifestyle sit more than 9 hours a day. Sitting for more than 6 hours a day increases health risks even for people who workout regularly. Healthy living involves less than 3 hours of sitting a day and that has to involve regular exercising too.
Sitting far from one’s work on a desk or reaching forward to a computer keynoard for long periods of time can lead to deformities of the shoulders and back. People of all ages should be seated in chairs that are designed for certain tasks. Ergonomc chairs that fit each person properly can bear health dividends.
CoreConcepts.com.sg in Singapore states “Bad posture may cause postural scoliosis, but it will not cause bone deformity. The good news is that it is completely reversible by exercises and posture re-training.”
More information about the effects of the sitting position on the body posture of children by the National Institutes of Health. They have concluded that maintaining a sitting position for a long time results in advanced asymmetries of the trunk and scoliosis, and causes a decrease in lumbar lordosis and kyphosis of a child’s entire spine.