Why make it about culture/race? Using anecdotal evidence the author is suggesting there is cultural reasons why this is happening. It’s not too far fetched to go one step further and make it also about race. I’m surprised people are ok with semi-racists articles like this perhaps because they come from NPR? All you have to do is remove one layer to realize the pseudoscience used in this article is saying some cultures and therefore races behave physically different than us (although in a good way, but nevertheless) without any rigid evidence. Yet no one here seems to mind that and not see how this leads to prejudice and exacerbating that we are different and everyone else is “others”.
There are people in the US who also bend from the waistline.
There ARE physical differences in races though. It's not so major that you should treat people as more or less than you, but there's nothing wrong with pointing out that there's different types of people around the world. For example when studying disease you can see statistically certain diseases are more common for certain races or sexes.
The article even mentions we still have "bending at the hip" in our culture as well especially in sports, yoga, and gardening. But we could benefit more than that.
And posture is cultural in that it varies somewhat depending on where you are. A military bootcamp would have a culture that promotes a certain posture. Even between a English tea room and a Japanese tea room there's different rules about posture. Then you can also even consider the fashions in an area. For example people who wear heels a lot (even a small heel) vs someone who is constantly wearing flip flops will have a very different squat. People who wear heels a lot will have a harder time doing a squat while keeping their heels down due to a shortening of the muscle on the back of their leg.
Does anyone really think there are no culture differences at all? Is this the position of anyone on any part of the political/ideological spectrum?
I mean, I can say that there is such a thing as a different diet between different countries/cultures, and I don't think I'm being racist or wrong. I'm just stating facts that literally everyone agrees with.
There are people in the US who also bend from the waistline.