IMPROVEMENT OF BODY MECHANICS IN ADOLESCENT CHILDREN

ONE OF the commonest problems presented to physicians by the adolescent patient is faulty posture or body mechanics. With the rapid growth in height that occurs in adolescence, all the earlier faults are made more apparent, even when they are not greatly increased in actual physical proportions. At this time, too, parents generally become much more aware of the physical appearance of their child than they were during his earlier years. This increased awareness of parents is based on many factors: the child's appearance in the more formal clothing demanded by his increasing social life; his greatly increased size, with the corresponding increase in any deformity which he may have; his lack of skill in managing his suddenly enlarged body and its members, and, most of all, their startled realization that the child can no longer be counted on to outgrow his undesirable physical traits and that these, in fact,