Correct Posture Photographs

Jackie Kennedy with good posture.

Correct posture photographs and pictures speak better than a thousand words when it comes to learning the correct posture.

The way we sit, stand, walk affects our health more than we know. How we hold ourselves impacts our breathing and how well we breathe. I.e. How much oxygen we get into our system. Besides learning to breathe properly, we should also learn how to have good posture.

Having good posture contributes to being elegantly poised, as most women would love to be, and a correct posture is a large part of that.

If you are looking for posture at work, see ergonomic pictures - relating to how to have a proper posture at a computer or how to sit at your desk for maximum health benefits. Also see ergonomics picture (gallery 2)

Correct Posture Guideline

Sideview Of Good Posture

Remember this picture from our main Posture Photo page? This line is supposed to guide us to have better posture.

However, not all of us can imagine that line well. So I've included these posture photographs for your memory and visualization. It will help when your body is trying to imitate the correct posture.

Most people believe that good posture means to 'stand at attention' like in the military. Contrary to that, one should look still, shoulders relaxed but stomach held in ('bikini squeeze'), as Mrs Kennedy has shown us in her picture above.

Another good example would to observe beauty pageants, where the contestants are trained on how to stand, walk and move gracefully, like queens.

Good posture at Miss Crescent City pageant

A common bad posture habit is have rounded shoulders.

Tried to find a better looking guy but...

And when they are told to stand straight, they push their shoulders too far back, causing strain on their lower back.

Notice how the woman on the extreme right puts on hand on her hip (above picture). That little trick is taught to us as a way to take a better photographs of ourselves. By putting your hands on your hip, you naturally stand in somewhat a good posture position, pushing your shoulders back but keeping them relaxed.

Try it!

Of course, this doesn't work for everybody because it depends on how much work your body needs for it to be trained for good posture. To undo all the bad habits and retrain our posture can sometimes take years! You are advised to see a specialist.

Ballet is excellent for posture training.

Posture Photographs

Posture training should start at a young age. I strongly believe in the education of ballet.

Look at how much help this little girl gets for good posture in ballet class. These good posture lessons will stay with her for life.

One woman whose posture I've deeply admired for life is Audrey Hepburn. If you watch how she sat, stood, walked and moved in movies and televistion interviews, you'll see what I mean. She studied ballet from a little girl and once aspired to be a ballet dancer. When she was deemed 'too tall' to be a professional ballet dancer, she opted for small modeling gigs to make ends meet. Someone spotted her and now we have a chance to admire her good posture forever.

Since Victorian times to just about a couple of decades ago, children, young men and women had posture training lessons from their mothers and schools. See the posture photograph on the right!

I'm not sure why it did not continue. Perhaps it is only in recent years, we have realized how good posture is related to good health. It's no wonder we are complaining of neck and back pains.

The introduction of flip flops, causing us to drag our feet and have poor posture. Without posture lessons, the introduction of T-shirt and flipflops in the last couple of decades birthed our new casual but rather sloppy culture.

Posture at work (see also Ergonomics), and especially the correct posture at a computer is of utmost importance, since most of us spend more than half our day typing away at a computer. Poor posture will lead to musculoskeletal disorders, or more commonly known as computer injuries.

These were published in 1935. 1935! Posture Pictures was from GOOD POSTURE IN THE LITTLE CHILD by The Children's Bureau (1935)

Carriage and Posture training of Customer Service staff at the Beijing Olympics 2008

This posture photograph shows posture training in modern day. Training for good posture is more common in upscale hotels and restaurants service staff. These large corporations understand the power of posture in nonverbal communication.

Go back to Posture Photo Galley.

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