BACKPACKS – HEAVY LOADS & BACK PAIN – PLUS TIPS TO HELP PREVENT PAIN

Backpack technology: American Chiropractic Association

Not only do kids of today pack heavy schoolbooks into their backpacks, many of them also strap popular electronic devices as laptop computers, cellular phones, MP3 players, CD players, and personal digital assistants (PDA) specially designed compartments inside their backpacks.

This improvement in backpack technology has brought about a greater awareness of the dangers of young, developing bodies wearing backpacks that are too heavy. For example, school textbooks are the heaviest they have ever been. So what happens to our kids’ bodies when they haul these heavy books and other personal effects directly on their backs? Two new studies may help to answer that very question.

The first study, published in the May 2003 issue of the journal Spine, found that the use of backpacks during the school day and the weights of the backpacks associated with back pain. And a second, presented by researcher Dr. Heidi Orloff at a May 28, 2003 meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine in San Francisco, concluded that children actually hunch their bodies forward and lower their heads to accommodate the burden of wearing heavy backpacks.