Love Your Spine!

The theme for WSD18 was Love Your Spine! As a global day of action to highlight the burden of spinal disorders and advocate for effective management, this theme reflects how people can empower themselves and others when it comes to spinal health.

Promoting physical activity, lifestyle management and psychosocial aspects of spinal health will be at the heart of the campaign.

Love Your Spine! highlighted the importance of spinal health and wellbeing. Promotion of physical activity, good posture, responsible lifting and healthy working conditions will all feature as people are encouraged to look after their spines and stay active.

Love Your Spine! developed the theme of the Straighten Up and Move program, originally developed in 2004. This program was embraced and promoted by the Bone and Joint Decade in 2006 and well received by leaders of the World Health Organization in 2006 .The Straighten Up and Move program is a bold and innovative health promotion initiative designed to empower people everywhere toward better spinal health and an improved quality of life. It is aimed at people of all ages, genders and cultures, with materials appropriate to age range.  Straighten Up and Move uses pictorial images and also has its content translated into many languages including (French, German, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Swedish among others).

Consisting of a series of simple exercises and lifestyle recommendations taking just minutes each day to complete, Straighten Up and Move modules promote the improvement of posture and body core stabilization to help in the prevention of spinal conditions. They are easy and fun and can be completed quickly as a regular day-to-day preventative health practice.  The 2-3 minute routines can help improve and prevent poor posture, which is a common trigger for general back and neck pain and can be undertaken by all ages.

For access to all of our Love Your Spine! logos and resources, free for your use in World Spine Day activities, see our resources page.