Comment on Three reasons you have neck pain – and why ‘bad posture’ probably isn’t one of them by M Munch.

The gigantic study you refer to was on *teenagers*; and when I looked briefly at the study, they explicitly say “The results are specific to 17-year-olds and may not be applicable to adults”; but you go on to talk about neck (and upper back pain) at *work*-stations on the job, generalizing to the population at large. Teenagers are flexible, and their physical aches and pains come and go quickly. Their physiology does not compare to that of adults, particularly older adults, and this is generally accepted as given.

I personally have experienced shoulder, arm and neck pain later in life (well into middle age) that resulted from long hours in poor seating in front of a computer including an arrangement where the monitor was at a bad height–in short, poor posture! My last major problem was solved (for good)–yes, after several months of hands-on PT by an incredibly skilled therapist to relieve a pinched nerve in my upper back–by moving the computer monitor, by getting a new desk chair, and by learning what good posture is and practicing it. Certainly this problem would not have gone away simply by getting a different chair, but that WAS part of the solution that kept my pain from returning.

And the posture-related problem I had prior to the neck/shoulder issue was a recurring pain down the back of my arm which DID go away with a new desk chair (in another location).

You can nay-say all you want about posture, but it absolutely DOES make a difference in many cases.