Many of us have been told at some point in our lives to stand or sit up straight-and usually, with a sense of guilt or embarrassment, we unthinkingly comply. That good posture is beneficial and important to one's health is a truism that we rarely examine or question. To critically analyze this belief, Beth Linker's talk explores the historical origins of the posture sciences in the early twentieth century. She explains how, despite a lack of physical evidence, upright posture became a widely accepted indicator of health and failures of form a sign of future disability and disease.
Beth Linker, a former physical therapist, is an author and professor of the history of science, disability, and medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Her most recent book, Slouch: Posture Panic in Modern America, reveals the little-known and surprising origins of our fears and ideas about poor posture. Her writing has appeared in The Boston Globe, Time, Psyche, The New England Journal of Medicine, and U.S.A. Today.
