Slouch: Posture Panic in Modern America

by Beth Linker

The strange and surprising history of the so-called epidemic of bad posture in modern America—from eugenics and posture pageants to today’s promoters of “paleo posture”

In 1995, a scandal erupted when the New York Times revealed that the Smithsonian possessed a century’s worth of nude “posture” photos of college students. In this riveting history, Beth Linker tells why these photos were only a small part of the incredible story of twentieth-century America’s largely forgotten posture panic—a decades-long episode in which it was widely accepted as scientific fact that Americans were suffering from an epidemic of bad posture, with potentially catastrophic health consequences. Tracing the rise and fall of this socially manufactured epidemic, Slouch also tells how this period continues to feed today’s widespread anxieties about posture.

In the early twentieth century, the eugenics movement and fears of disability gave slouching a new scientific relevance. Bad posture came to be seen as an individual health threat, an affront to conventional race hierarchies, and a sign of American decline. What followed were massive efforts to measure, track, and prevent slouching and, later, back pain—campaigns that reached schools, workplaces, and beyond, from the creation of the American Posture League to posture pageants. The popularity of posture-enhancing products, such as girdles and lumbar supports, exploded, as did new fitness programs focused on postural muscles, such as Pilates and modern yoga. By 1970, student protests largely brought an end to school posture exams and photos, but many efforts to fight bad posture continued, despite a lack of scientific evidence.

A compelling history that mixes seriousness and humor, Slouch is a unique and provocative account of the unexpected origins of our largely unquestioned ideas about bad posture.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Health, Audiobook, Sociology

392 pages, Hardcover

Published April 9, 2024

Reviews

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Enjoyable and interesting until the final two chapters, which take a bizarre turn seemingly antithetical to the whole rest of it, unless I’m hugely misunderstanding it. One of the through lines of the book is the degree to which posture science is based on non-consensual surveillance, often done under the guise of routine health examinations. They describe the potential for abuse and trauma of female students being photographed nude by male photographers for “posture exams” and detail the pseudoscientific basis for all of this.

And then, the second to last chapter details “over privileged ‘victims’ would not be denied justice” when college students from Ivy League schools reacted with alarm to learning that researchers were attempting to use these old, mandatory and non consensual nude photos. It decried the “immense loss of data” from this, and that student privacy had been protected, even though the previous chapter had noted many instances where the pictures were stolen, misused, etc, and the difficulties of universities keeping the photographs secure. The researcher might deidentify the student names, but the files are still linked to their names (or the researcher couldn’t contact them) and that’s the issue people had with it!

It’s just… what? It’s like letting Tucker Carlson write the afterward for The New Jim Crow. Completely bizarre refutation of everything that came before, which made me call into doubt everything else, because with what level of thought was any of this written if that happened?

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was interesting. Despite having taken probably 25+ credit hours of anatomy (and TA'ing it for years), a stint in physical therapy school, and working in healthcare, I had no idea about anything in this book. I vaguely remember a scoliosis test in elementary school gym class (circa 1994?), but otherwise never knew anything about posture studies or having it be something monitored so closely.

This was a super fascinating read and the author does a nice job diving into the history of it, and the implications and rationale for it (how race, gender, and SES plays into it, arguments about informed consent and research ethics, sexuality in the media, college politics and in loco parentis policies, history of fashion, etc.)

Thanks Libro.fm for the ALC.

[Daniel K-Cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting background on why people place so much import on whether you sit or stand up straight. A few interesting facts from the book: "stand up for" or "stand up to" originally referenced posture (e.g. stand up to communism b/c here in the home of the brave, we are upright citizens, unlike those slouches in the USSR); straight vs bent as descriptions of sexuality reference a biological determinist view that people who are morally upright (and therefore not gay) are also physically upright; and if you had a scoliosis exam in school (as I did), this is a legacy of 20th-century posture exams. There is no evidence that good posture leads to better health outcomes or that bad posture leads to worse health outcomes (including outcomes related to back pain).

[Juliet Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

On such a good HISTORY KICK RN!! This book is another dense, not pop-sci volume that gave me a lot of context for my (true) belief that posture is pseudoscientific quackery, honestly it hurts to imagine how much effort was put into quantifying posture that could have been placed elsewhere. Such is the history of medicine tho. My only critique is that I think the author could have narrowed her scope just slightly, the history is certainly intersectional but the various detours don’t necessarily all support her thesis

[Lisa-Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a great read! It goes into history, bioethics, medical research, archival ethics... and with a grace that ties all these subject together in an enjoyable-to-read package.

Highly recommend for anyone into history of health science or medical research.

[Krysta Halye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beth Linker writes in a narrative style that is easy to follow.

In Slouch, she explores the "epidemic" of poor posture in the modern world. Her historical account of the idea of good posture exposes some of the ways that posture was used in college admissions and employment. Also how posture became part of an ableist culture and sometimes racist as well.

[Jo Matey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very dense reading; seems more like an anthropological dissertation than a book. Provides a deep dive into areas of study I’d never heard of such as nude postural photos from mid-century college campuses.

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

How a book about posture panic and the history of posture studies was so fascinating, I'll never know, but I fully enjoyed this one and learned a lot of new things! I especially enjoyed the chapter that covered the development of school and office furniture and shoes to promote proper posture. The coverage of how we stereotype people with poor posture, as well as the links between the eugenics movement, is well done.

[Rayfes Mondal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Think there is a lot of interesting history here but just couldn't get into it so I read the beginning and end only. Odd to think that until the 1970s almost every Ivy League college student was photographed naked to check their posture

[Lisa Haushofer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant perspective on American history through the many ways we’ve worried about standing tall. Deeply researched and engagingly told, a must read for anyone interested in disability history, history of science and medicine, and US history.

[Ariadne Will]

Zoned out for most of this one

[Glennie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did not finish. Interesting info here, but hard to read. Reads like a textbook and I found it difficult.

[Luisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[Jillian · Rating 3 out of 5]

A slog, first and last chapters were interesting, the middle chapters were repetitive

[Kirsten]

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/26/sc...