Professionals are urging parents to prevent their children from kicking their knees out in a W-shaped position as it could affect them later in life.
Flexible young kids are often able to fold their limbs into all sorts of uncomfortable-looking arrangements, which usually become entirely impossible in later life as our bodies start to give in to old age.
The Pediatric Therapy Center has issued a warning against children bending their knees at the awkward W-angle, which youngsters can often be seen doing to keep their balance when sat on the floor, playing or drawing.
According to professionals, as reported by Women’s Health, the position can be the cause of a multitude of issues. Kids who continue sitting in this position after their second birthday may not properly develop the core strength and balance they need for certain motor skills, like jumping and running.
As well as impacting core strength, sitting in the W-position may also leave children with tight muscles in the legs, hips, and ankles, and could possibly lead to a hip dislocation.
Extensive use of it may even leave children pigeon-toed, meaning they walk with their toes turned in.
In a video posted by Movement Rx, a company specialising in wellness and physical therapy, Dr Claudia Chaloner explained how habitually adopting this pose can lead to the orthopedic issues in the joints.
She said:
Not only is this bad for our hips, knees and ankles, but it also delays our postural muscles and gaining that core stability that we need, especially when we grow up to do weight lifting or any kind of sport.
We can also cause some decrease in joint integrity because we are at that end range of our position and it can cause some laxity in the joint capsules, which is never a good thing.
We also get a delay in not only these postural muscles but gross motor skills, coordination and balance.
The doctor encouraged children to sit in other positions, like cross-legged.
Make sure you keep an eye on the way your kids are sitting – they’ll thank you for it in the future!
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Emily Brown first began delivering important news stories aged just 13, when she launched her career with a paper round. She graduated with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University, and went on to become a freelance writer and blogger. Emily contributed to The Sunday Times Travel Magazine and Student Problems before becoming a journalist at UNILAD, where she works on breaking news as well as longer form features.