Good evening to my lecturer, Miss Saw and my fellow friends.

Today, I would like to

share something which is very important for everyone but least of us really care for it. So,
the title of my speech today is posture and postural defects. Before I start my speech, I
would like to ask you all, what is posture? From the information I get from internet, posture
is the position in which we hold our bodies while standing, sitting, or lying down. And now I
have 2 pictures to show you, do you think these are the good sitting posture? If yes, please
raise your hand. Alright, so obviously these two are not a good posture. And the correct
way to sit is like these. For your information, good posture is defined as the correct
alignment of body parts supported by the right amount of muscle tension against gravity.

Here is the example to show you the correct and wrong standing posture. I think all of you
know that the middle one is the correct posture which we should follow. Next, we see about
the poor posture. The poor posture is also known as postural dysfunction. So what is the
biggest effect of poor posture? Cannot be doubted, poor posture can lead to postural
defects or also known as postural deficiency. The meaning of postural defects is muscular
weakness of support apparatus.

Then, we now look about the types of postural defects.

There are 3 types of postural defects which are kyphosis, lordosis and scoliosis.
Firstly, kyphosis is a common postural defect which is normally known as hunchback. As you
can see in the picture, it is the forward exaggerated curvature of spine than normal.
Kyphosis can occur at any age but it is more common in older women or men. Besides,
lordosis is the inward curvature of the lumbar part of the vertebral column. Let see the
picture, this is our vertebral column and this is lumbar part. Lordosis can also be called
swayback. People who with lordosis usually have a small space beneath their lower part
when they lying on the flat and hard surface. Lastly, scoliosis is a condition that causes the
spine to curve to the side. It can affect any part of the spine but the most common regions
are the chest area (thoracic part called thoracic scoliosis) and the lower section of back
(lumbar part called lumbar scoliosis).

Causes of postural defects:

1. Bad sitting habit
Most of us nowadays are sitting at a computer all the day or using a tablet, cell phone or
working with several devices at once. This situation can quickly take your body out of
alignment. It is because we usually sit with a wrong posture. After a long period of time,
they are used to sit with the poor posture.
2. Use of technology
We can say that smart phone is a necessity of everybody. We use the phone to contact
others by using Apps. For example, our lecturers use the WhatsApp to inform us some
important information and we use the Wechat to contact our families and friend in our
 hometown. However, if you text incessantly, you may develop text neck, which is your
neck is forward bending for too long and feel painful.
3. Lack of exercise
As we know, exercise is very important for our health and helps us to keep fit. if we do
not exercise very often, this will lead to obesity or overweight. If a person is overweight,
extra stress and strain will put on to the supporting bone.

4. Lack of awareness
People is unaware regarding the concept of proper posture and continue follow the
wrong posture. They will also did not realise that their posture are incorrect.

Ways to prevent bad posture:

1. Exercise regularly
Focus on core-strengthening exercise like yoga that will build strength in your abs and
pelvic area, which are the primary muscles that encourage good posture. Push-up and
sit-up exercise are recommended to train abdominal muscles and keep bones aligned.

2. Keep fit/ lose weight

Watch out our diet, reduce unhealthy food such as junk food and fast food like McD,
KFC, Pizza Hut and so on and the soft drinks as well. The purpose for doing this is to
avoid overweight which give high pressure to the supporting bone.

3. Awareness
Always be aware about our sitting, standing and sleeping posture. Avoid standing or
sitting in prone position for too long, and take notice of your posture. If you notice that
your posture is wrong, correct it immediately so that we will not getting poor posture.

4. Seek for doctor

If you always feel that your back and shoulder is painful or strained, quickly go to
hospital or clinic to check whether your posture is correct or not.

Last but not least, I think after my speech, everyone knows the causes of postural deficiency
and the ways to overcome this problem clearly. Posture is very important for everyone as it
influences our looks and the impression of someone as well as our health. Lastly, a soundly
advice to who realised that his posture is bad, correct it as soon as possible before it
become worst. As the going said: Prevention is better than cure.