The Tall Girl Slouch Is Worse Than You Think | Being Tall Comes With Physical Consequences Nobody Talks About

As tall women, we struggle with quite a few things because of our height. For starters, clothes. For the most part, they're fairly short or they fit awkwardly. We struggle with people's comments about our height and bodies. We also struggle with how we see ourselves and our own insecurities. However, there's a struggle that's kind of like one of those things that's super obvious but it's not, or it's so obvious that we tend to overlook it, and that's our posture. With hunching over desks all day and bending down awkwardly to be in photos, Tall women, tall people, often endure years and years of this to the point where it can cause severe damage. So in today's episode, we're going to be talking about tall people's posture, the consequences of years of bad posture, and how bad posture is way more than simply just slouching. So without further ado, let's get into it. Good morning, everybody. You are currently listening to a tall girl's podcast hosted by a tall girl named India. I hope everyone who is tuning in today is doing super fantastic. Before I get into this episode, I do want to say, make sure you're following me on my socials at A Tall Girl's Podcast on Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest so that you can stay up to date on all of the latest podcast episodes and catch a glimpse of my everyday life. Also, feel free to leave me a review and let me know how tall you are. I'm genuinely curious. I also have a monthly newsletter. Make sure you subscribe to that. Everything is going to be linked in the description. I hope everybody is doing fantastic today. We are going to be talking about how detrimental it is to continuously have bad posture. And by the end of this, if this episode did not scare you into having better posture or at least being more aware of your posture, then it didn't do its job. Recently on the clock app, I've been seeing tall women kind of clocking their poor posture. So much so that I started clocking my own poor posture and attempted to sit up straight for the next hour. Seeing how bad your posture is as a tall person is extremely humbling. Like you'll actually catch yourself typing at your computer looking like a question mark. It's embarrassing. Now, if you don't know, I have posture issues myself. I have the standard rounded shoulders as most tall people probably do but I also have lateral and interior pelvic tilts which basically means that my hips or my pelvis I don't know guys I am a business student but I believe is my pelvis my pelvis is shifted more to the right it kind of hikes up and it's tilted forward so essentially yes I slouch but I also kind of stand crooked and This was several years ago. This was many, many years ago where I actually did a story time on this podcast about how I found out about my new height. And apparently I'm 6'2 and not 5'10 because I had the realization that I was standing terribly. I had very bad posture. And so I started working more on standing up straight. And I was like, wow, like I actually probably am shorter than I actually or I've been standing shorter at a shorter height. Then I actually am this whole entire time because of this posture. And so I went to the doctor to go remeasure myself to see how tall I was. It was a whole thing, but essentially she was very short lady herself. She was probably a foot shorter than me. And she was trying to measure me. And it was very difficult because she couldn't, like, reach above me. And she told me that I was 6'2. And I was like, there's no way. There's no way I'm 6'2. And then she started telling the other nurse that I was 6'2. And then even the other nurse was like, no way. And she came back and remeasured me. And she's like, oh, you're a little over 5'10. Ooh, that was a long-winded summary. But that was the whole thing with finding out about, you know, my poor posture. And how I, because I wasn't standing up straight, that... You know, I was standing at a shorter height than I actually am. But then on top of that, as I've also mentioned very briefly on this podcast, I also have an autoimmune disease that affects lots of parts of my body. But it also affects my back. And essentially, I have this condition, another condition where my back is slowly... deteriorating. Like though my, my lower back is slowly fusing together. So that's also playing a part in my height as well. Um, so I should probably get remeasured for my height, see if I'm still a little over 5'10 or if I'm shorter than that. But yeah, it's been a long journey with that, but that really just goes to show how posture can basically affect Not only how you look to other people or look to yourself, as I said before, when you're like typing on the computer looking like a question mark or a shrimp, but it can also affect how tall you actually are. And excluding the autoimmune disease part, because I understand that not everybody has that, but the poor posture part with the slouching, the rounded shoulders, the pelvic tilts and so forth. I'm pretty sure that that is very common. Like my posture has definitely been through a lot over the years and I'm sure many other tall women, many other tall people have gone through something like this. And there are a lot of reasons for a tall person's poor posture. The simple fact that the world really wasn't made with us in mind. I mean, desks are on the lower side, counters, sinks, mostly because of the environment that we're in on a daily basis with these lower desks and lower counters and lower sinks. We're naturally forced to kind of hunch over and slouch so that we're able to be closer to these things to do what we need to do. And this is why elevated desks and standing desks have become a thing. I mean, you know, not necessarily just for tall people, but for people in general who struggle with slouching over or hunching over on their desks and so forth. These standing or elevated desks help them stand up straighter. And you know, that's very useful for tall people. And also if you have the budget for it, you can also pay money for home renovations to make your counters tall friendly or make your sinks tall friendly. We also naturally slouch to be closer to our friends when we're talking to our friends or shorter people. It's so funny. I went to a birthday thing once birthday gathering the other day and yes I'm taller than you know most of my friends but I was also wearing heels so I'm pretty sure I was over six feet and you know it's a group of us and as we're talking and stuff I literally found myself legitimately bending over like you know how those basketball players kind of put their hands on their knees and like bend over when they're breathing hard or they want to rest or whatever I was literally bending over like that to have a conversation with them or I would literally stand in like the tall girl stance not the hip thing but more so like actually bending down like knees fully bent to try to be closer to them so I can hear because we were at a bar okay it was hard to hear them so I have myself standing in like really weird positions just so I can be closer to them to hear them and that's a practical thing that many tall people go through on a daily basis. Have any of the tall Queens struggled with maintaining good posture? Because I feel like it's already difficult for people in general when you sit at a desk all day, or if you're looking down at your phone quite a bit, but as a tall person, it's really difficult when the world is below my eye level. It's just like even sitting down across from somebody at a table, my torso is long. So I'm automatically looking like this and having to look down at you. You know, I'm not seeing you at eye level. So I naturally want to slouch so that I can see you at the same level that we can see each other at the same level. And I feel like it's the same for everything. Like I just, because the world is lower than us, does anybody else deal with that where they're constantly looking down, like constantly starting to just, get down there to even out, it's terrible. I want good posture, but it's just so natural to look down. And I feel like tall people are so accustomed to slouching in our everyday lives that we don't even realize that we're doing it. That's why when we see a photo or see a video of ourselves and our posture, we're so shocked by how we look. Do any other tall girls like catch a glimpse of their reflection when they're walking like on the street in like a store window? When I see myself. Hunchback of Notre Dame. I stand up so quick. And then I wonder sometimes like that also doesn't look natural, right? So like, am I supposed to like, I don't know. Now, aside from the practical reasons, which I argue make up a majority of the reasons, we also slouch and practice bad posture to make ourselves smaller. I don't think I really need to go too deeply into this because I've done quite a few episodes on this and, you know, there's probably going to be many more episodes around that topic that I'm going to do. But some tall people, tall women even, are very insecure or they want to hide or they don't want to be the center of attention and they want to make themselves shorter or make themselves smaller. So we kind of force ourselves into the slouch to make ourselves smaller. I don't know if it's just me, but as a tall girl, Back in school, secondary, primary, I used to stand with my leg bent. I was so insecure about my height that I would try and make out like I'm shorter than I actually am. I don't know if anyone can relate to this, but obviously as years go by, now that I'm, what, touching my mid-twenties soon, my posture is messed up. And it's just, it's upsetting, the fact that when you're younger, you're made to feel out of place or you have to do the most to just fit in. It's really sad. The truth is, the tall girl slouch is more than just a bad habit we take into adulthood. It's a whole body issue that affects how we carry ourselves, from our heads and our shoulders all the way down to our backs, hips, and even feet. We're going to do a little example here. Take sitting at a desk with our laptop, doing work, homework, schoolwork, whatever it may be. We're not simply just slouching. or hunching over that laptop, right? Sometimes because, you know, especially if we're sitting in one position for a while, it gets uncomfortable, we shift, et cetera. But sometimes we slouch in our chairs to be at eye level with this, with the laptop. Yes, our back and shoulders are rounded, but Our neck and head are kind of pushed forward. Our hips are also kind of pushed forward and misaligned in a way, especially if we have a preference for one side over the other in terms of left and right side, of course. Or another example, when we're in photos or even just talking to people or friends who are shorter than us, And we do that hip thing where we hike one of our hips up. Like, you know, I'm pretty sure, especially if you're a tall girl, I'm pretty sure you understand that or know what I'm talking about. We do that hip hike thing. And honestly, that played a role in my posture. Like my right side, my right hip is literally like hiked up compared to the left side. And it stays that way unless I'm aware of how my hip is and I consciously move it back into a normal neutral position. So when we're doing that, especially for an extended period of time, like your hip just naturally hikes up and then the shoulder where the hip is hiked up naturally kind of slumps down. That's what happened to me. Even when I, even when I'm editing the video version of these episodes and I'm looking at how I'm sitting in this chair, I'm like, Oh dear goodness. It's, Not as bad as it once was, but it's still pretty bad. And my right shoulder also kind of like folds forward. It's just, it's a lot. But I'm saying all of this to say, I'm giving all of these examples to say that posture is a whole body issue. It's literally not just, you know, your back or slouching or hunching over on your shoulders and so forth. Even when I was saying before about head and shoulders all the way down to your back, hips and your feet. Another thing that I'm also still kind of struggling with is because of how my posture is and how a lot of my weight is kind of shifted on the right side. I also have this weird angle thing going on because there is more pressure on the right side of my body. There's more weight on the right side of my body. So the right side has to deal with more than my left side. And so not only I'm dealing with some weird ankle thing because of the amount of weight that's more so shifted on my right side, my left side, I will say, is definitely a bit weaker than my right side. I even notice when I'm trying to practice good form in the gym or just in general and I'm trying to walk properly, my left side is not used to that amount of weight. So it gets... more exhausted it gets more tired than my right side typically would and that's because over time constantly repeating this poor posture this bad posture it causes massive imbalances over the years and it causes massive imbalances because it involves the entire body not just your back and shoulders. Having poor posture is more than just rounding the shoulders forward and slumping while sitting The whole body contributes to this problem and only focusing on upper body stretching and strengthening will get you nowhere in improving your posture. The core and lower body also play a vital role in posture. We want the ears, shoulder, hips, and ankles to line up. The first thing to happen in bad posture is the weight shifts back on the heels which causes the hips to shift forward. This deactivates and weakens the gluteus muscles and core. In order to counter the change in center of gravity our shoulders round forward and the head starts to push forward. This weakens the rhomboids and neck and tightens the upper traps and pectoral muscles. This process continues in a loop as muscles weaken and tighten, further reinforcing poor posture. This is why postural improvement should focus on the whole body by strengthening posterior chain and core muscles as well as releasing and stretching hip flexors and pectoral muscles. And over on social media, and honestly there are plenty of articles on the internet, Many people, many tall women, many whoever, they have discussed the implications of having this terrible posture for extended periods of time. Like muscle strain and back pain, but there can be far worse consequences like increased risk of injuries, poor circulation, poor digestion, disc problems, and so much more. And simply relying on trying to remember to stand with better posture is not always going to work. Yes, it's part of the solution because you have to be aware of the issue and be more aware of how you're sitting to consciously fix it and so forth but there are a lot of other things that you're gonna have to do besides that like with me for example once I started implementing daily stretching or daily mobility exercises that has I've done that for what the past two three years I've definitely seen a difference now obviously that's not gonna erase everything because I've been having this bad posture since childhood and I'm 24 years old. So two years out of 24 years is quite literally nothing, I will say, but it's a step in the right direction. So for me, implementing the stretching and so forth has definitely been helpful. There are also people who say that exercising also helps, like exercising certain parts of your body. With me, for example, I have to be very, very careful with how I do that, especially with my back condition, as I said earlier in this episode. So there are a lot of things that are recommended to do, but I can't necessarily do because I know it's going to cause problems in other areas or in different ways. So That's usually something I say, make sure you listen to your body, but also speak with a professional and so forth. I know physical therapy also helps a lot of people as well. But for me, for example, starting to train more lower body because I've been an athlete for a good chunk of my life. And because I was a child, they didn't really recommend me doing anything gym related. So When I first started going to the gym, I more so just focused on upper body because a lot of the sports that I've done also focus on upper body. So I didn't find lower body to be important until, you know, figuring out that my posture isn't the greatest. That was part of it. So, you know, kind of evening everything out because as I said before, it's an entire body, a whole body issue. Kind of evening out the exercising has also definitely been very, very helpful for me. So working on your strength and making sure you're incorporating stretching and more movement is very helpful, but also making those daily adjustments. Not everybody's gonna have money to raise their sinks and counters in their homes. Um, but you know, there's definitely different tools that are available to us now. Like, I think I remember seeing this, uh, tall person, um, on TikTok one time and he had like a cutting board that had two legs. So, but it was sturdy legs. So the cutting board wasn't like flat on the counter, which was low. It was elevated. So it's closer to him. So he's not like hunching over to cut his vegetables or whatever, something like that. Having a standing desk or an elevated desk. There are tools available now to help you when you're sitting down or doing your daily things to help you kind of like have better posture than if you didn't have them. So it's great that there are a lot of options available. And you know, it could be pesky to like pay for these things or try to incorporate into your daily lives. But it's so important that you start doing that, especially when you're younger, because When you're older, especially if you're doing 40, 50, 60 years, it's so much harder to kind of get out of those bad habits or get out of that bad posture than if you were, let's say, around my age, 30s, even 40s. And again, you know, there's a lot of consequences, negative consequences, poor digestion, poor circulation, muscle imbalances, disc problems. Like it could even get bad to where you have to have surgery. Yes, surgery on your back. Even with me dealing with some weird ankle thing going on because most of my weight is on my right side because of my poor posture. Like these are very serious things to think about. But if you're a tall person and you're dealing with neck pain, hip pain, back pain, foot pain even, just know that your posture plays a huge role in that. So make sure you keep your posture in check. Anyways, I'm going to end the episode here. Thank you so much for tuning in. I really appreciate it and I appreciate you. Of course, as always, feel free to hit me up on my socials at A Tall Girl's Podcast and let me know what you thought about this episode. Do you also struggle with poor posture? Is your poor posture serious? Is it more than just you having rounded shoulders or do you have legit like back issues or even like me with my pelvic tilts and, you know, causing all this pain and imbalances and all that? How are you trying to get back on track? Are you using any tools or any braces or back braces even? Let me know in the comments wherever you are tuning into this, or of course you can send me a DM. And until then, I will catch you guys in the next one. Good night and goodbye.