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 By Roger Harrabin.
Top experts in bones and joints have warned that the government's public health policies concentrate too heavily on hearts and lungs at the expense of the whole human frame.
The anti-obesity strategy in the forthcoming White Paper on health will attempt to persuade people to burn off calories by eating more carefully and moving around more.
A separate strategy to reduce the number of painful falls among old people (which cost the NHS almost £1 billion a year) will focus on practical measures, like making sure carpets are properly fixed.
But two leading rheumatologists told Today that both strategies ignored the need for flexibility and agility. Sitting slumped in a chair all day was not just bad for the heart and the weight, it also reduced the mobility of joints which greatly increased the likelihood of falling.
Having flexible joints had another benefit, too, they said - it made people feel better and happier in themselves.
Professor Rodney Graham from UCL Hospitals in London said the Department of Health under-emphasised the need to keep the musculo-skeletal system healthy. Professor Tony Woolf from the Royal Cornwall Hospital, who is working with the WHO on the decade of bones and joints, said one in four adults in Europe had a structural condition like back pain, rheumatism or arthritis that caused them problems.
"It gets considered a normal part of ageing - something that normally happens," he said. "We always talk about pain being bearable - implying that we should put up with it - but we now know there are things we can do to prevent it or treat it more effectively." He said people needed to keep up flexibility to stave off pain.
He said that in Eastern cultures where people are more physically active and often sit on the floor rather than on chairs, there was anecdotal evidence that problems with joints were less common.
The author of a yoga book, Anton Simmha, (yogabubble.com) has just returned from India. He told Today that people there - especially children - appeared much more aware of their bodies than people in the UK, and enjoyed better posture, co-ordination, flexibility and balance.
He urged schools to encourage children to sit cross-legged in class whenever possible in order to retain their childhood flexibility and keep their back muscles active. He also wants teachers to offer exercises like stretching and yoga which encourage flexibility and parallel development of both sides of the body to counterbalance sports like football, tennis and cricket which encourage the body to develop out of line.
Does Britain suffer from bad posture? Roger Harrabin reports.
Here is what some of you have been saying:
The report on the health problems associated with sitting on chairs instead of the floor was abosolutley right. We will not get everyone sitting on the floor - this is not the Indian sub-continent, the climate is not conducive, and it is not part of our culture. But better chairs would encourage better siting posture which would reduce the incidence of back pain. The family sofa - too soft, too deep, too low - is responsible for a lot of back , knee, and hip pain. Better seat designÌýmeans better postureÌýwhich leads toÌýbetter health.
From: Jane Staggs
Further to your item about the effects of sitting in chairs, I would also like to point out that in many schools chairs and tables are of the wrong relative height. Instead of sitting upright with the arm by the side, the elbow at waist height and the pen pointing back over the shoulder, children are slumped over the desk at a table that is too high with the forearm having to rest on the desk and the book and hand turned around sideways. When I was teaching infants and suggested that tables should be lower, I was told that these were what the manufacturer recommended for the height of chair.
Also no account is taken, when furnishing a classroom, that some smaller children have greater problems and I have seen them sit with one leg tucked under them on the chair to boost their height.
This matter should be taken seriously, to prevent back problems in later life.
From: Heather Lee.
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