Mind your back: Hunched-over
Devices pain in the neck for teenagers
Teenagers bent over cellphones, laptops and tablets are setting themselves up for years of pain.
Health professionals say an epidemic of neck, shoulder and back pain linked to using the devices is already here and growing.
Worried parents are taking teens in pain to therapists and the message is always the same: Bodies weren’t designed to sit and stand all day looking down at a screen.
Auckland physiotherapist Pip Sail says she sees 10 teenagers a week with overuse problems from cellphones and laptops.
Sail says the constant bending over generates great stress at the fifth and sixth neck vertebrae because the head is so heavy.
The body grows thick muscle around the neck to compensate. But the muscles down the back that hold the head straight get long and weakened, and front muscles get weak and short.
That creates headaches, neck and back pain.
Sail says shoulder pain often appears when teens try to do something where they need to be upright and backwards – like using a racket or swimming.
She says the problems have escalated since many schools have pushed students into working on laptops and using them for homework.
‘‘They don’t sit properly, they sit cross-legged on their bed in a bad posture again. It’s a time factor, they are doing this bending over so much,’’ Sail says.
Blenheim chiropractor Karen Jennison says she sees young people ‘‘all the time’’ with problems from bad posture related to cellphones and laptops.
‘‘I’m so concerned that today’s teenagers will be those little old men and women hunched over at age 30. It’s awful.’’
She says children who used to run and play all day now spend most of their time leaning over phones and computers.