We have all heard “stand up straight!” or “pull your shoulders back!” but have you ever wondered why this matters? Well, it is because our posture matters!
Our posture is the position of the body or the position of several parts of the body with respect to each other for a particular purpose! It is more than just how our body is positioned but how the body functions based off of its position!
If you are wanting your body to function at its highest potential, then it is very important to focus on your posture so that the body can function as it was designed!
I want to talk specially about a certain postural deviation that I have been seeing for years and it starts very early, sometimes as early as infancy! This is how our head is positioned in relation to our shoulder. When you are looking at someone, their shoulders should be level and then their head should go straight up.
Well, sometimes this does not happen, and people have what is called a head tilt. This is when the eyes are not perfectly horizontal to the floor and one ear is closer to the corresponding shoulder than the other side. Occasionally when there is a head tilt, there can also be slight rotation in the head positioning as well due to the SCM (sternocleidomastoid) muscle not being balanced from side to side.
I see this all of the time in pictures, (the perks of being a chiropractor… I can see postural deviations in everything I look at) and even though it may look cute for young kids to have their head tilted slightly, this is not optimal positioning for them.
There are a few reasons that this is not optimal for little kids, and I want to go through two of them now with you!
When their head is tilted, their eyes are then tilted as well. When we ask these kids to focus on words on a page, they may have a hard time focusing on the words and this may lead to potential learning/reading delays.
Try this for yourself. Go and grab a sheet of paper with many lines or words on it. Now tilt your head and try to read the paper… it is hard isn’t it! That is what these kids with head tilt deal with every day and why they get frustrated while learning to read!
The muscles in the neck are also not working properly leading to disbalance and easier fatigue. This can be cause of future pain and dysfunction in the child’s spine!
When one muscle is chronically tight as a young child, it is not likely to get better into adulthood unless something is done to assist in the healing at a young age.
Okay, so you may see this in your child but are unsure of what to do. Well, that is where a pediatric experienced chiropractor comes into play! Their job is to assess your child’s spinal function and to correct how it is working. When this is done, it is very common for posture to improve and for the child to begin to thrive in several different areas of life!
If you are in the Columbus area and you want to have your child’s posture assessed, please set up an appointment by clicking here to schedule online. And if you need help finding a chiropractor in your area, please reach out to me and I can assist you in locating a chiropractor in your area who is experienced in pediatric care!
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