> In a study of 110 students at San Francisco State University, half of whom were told to walk in a slumped position and the other half to skip down a hall, the skippers had a lot more energy throughout the day.
and followed the link to the cited abstract:
> The treatment of depression has predominantly focused on medication or cognitive behavioral therapy and has given little attention to the effect of body movement and postures. This study investigated how body posture during movement affects subjective energy level. One hundred and ten university students (average age 23.7) rated their energy level and then walked in either a slouched position or in a pattern of opposite arm and leg skipping. After about two to three minutes, the students rated their subjective energy level, then walked in the opposite movement pattern and rated themselves again. After slouched walking, the participants experienced a decrease in their subjective energy (p < .01); after opposite arm leg skipping they experienced a significant increase in their subjective energy (p < .01). There was a significantly greater decrease (p < .05) in energy at the end of the slouched walk for the 20% of the participants who had the highest self-rated depression scores, as compared to the lowest 20%. By changing posture, subjective energy level can be decreased or increased. Thus the mind-body relationship is a two way street: mind to body and body to mind. The authors discuss clinical and teaching implications of body posture.
Somehow "after about two to three minutes, the students rated their subjective energy level" turned into "a lot more energy throughout the day". Also, all the study participants did both styles of walk, contrary to the blog post’s implication. Overall, the summary misleading and not particularly relevant to the author’s main point, which is about the long-term effects of chronically bad posture.
Following a small random selection of links is a decent way of figuring out whether an article quotes its sources fairly — it's common that authors are either quite diligent about everything, or sloppy about everything, not inbetween.
The abstract doesn't quite say the thing she says it says. Not that this shows the overall point of the article is not true, just that a random sampling (n=1, p≤1) of the sources suggests the article may be sloppily written and it and its use of evidence should be questioned, not taken at face value.
> In a study of 110 students at San Francisco State University, half of whom were told to walk in a slumped position and the other half to skip down a hall, the skippers had a lot more energy throughout the day.
and followed the link to the cited abstract:
> The treatment of depression has predominantly focused on medication or cognitive behavioral therapy and has given little attention to the effect of body movement and postures. This study investigated how body posture during movement affects subjective energy level. One hundred and ten university students (average age 23.7) rated their energy level and then walked in either a slouched position or in a pattern of opposite arm and leg skipping. After about two to three minutes, the students rated their subjective energy level, then walked in the opposite movement pattern and rated themselves again. After slouched walking, the participants experienced a decrease in their subjective energy (p < .01); after opposite arm leg skipping they experienced a significant increase in their subjective energy (p < .01). There was a significantly greater decrease (p < .05) in energy at the end of the slouched walk for the 20% of the participants who had the highest self-rated depression scores, as compared to the lowest 20%. By changing posture, subjective energy level can be decreased or increased. Thus the mind-body relationship is a two way street: mind to body and body to mind. The authors discuss clinical and teaching implications of body posture.