Environmental Diversity In Body Posture Of Six-Year-Old Children

Introduction. Body posture is a somatic characteristic essential for the biological development of the child, especially in the periods of rapid growth and those associated with changes in lifestyle. Its lability and dimorphic and ontogenetic variability cause a lot of controversy. Doubts are also raised by environmental diversity of this development feature. Hence, the purpose of the studies undertaken is the comparative evaluation of postures of six-year-old children in urban and rural areas. Material and methods. The study was conducted in 2011-2013. A total of 1057 children, including the 371 boys and girls from the Warsaw agglomeration and 147 boys and 168 girls from the rural environment in the Lublin region were subjects of the study. The average age was 5.87 (± 0.30) years. Posture in the sagittal, frontal and transverse planes was diagnosed by a visual method using scanning technique. In the mathematical analysis of numerical data the selected techniques of descriptive statistics and Student's t-test and chi-square test were used. Results. The differences in body posture between the environments in favor of the children from the rural areas emerged most strongly in the sagittal plane. They related to posture components such as: setting of the shoulders and shoulder blades (boys and girls), abdominal bulge (boys) and the position of the head (girls). In the assessment of the lower extremities the study demonstrated favorable condition knees in rural children as compared with their peers from the city. The only element of posture better shaped in the urban subgroup was the size of thoracic kyphosis. Conclusions. Established posture quality - treated as one of the positive measures of health - allows for a higher rating of this school readiness component in lowly urbanized residential areas. The complexity of posture diagnostics and lability and variability of the analyzed somatic characteristics dictate caution in formulating radical and definitive opinions on the importance of urbanization as posturogenesis condition.