Tips on Carrying a Backpack Safely

Now that the school year is back in full swing, kids everywhere are leaving home with backpacks full of completed homework, textbooks, extra reading, personal hygiene items and a snack or two. A lot of concern has been raised recently over whether or not backpacks are safe for children to carry. Chiropractors in the United States have been instrumental in getting this subject in the forefront of parents' minds.

One major concern is that more homework is assigned to younger and younger children. While I think an answer to that problem is simple: just reduce the amount of homework, it's unlikely to happen anytime soon. One basic rule of backpack safety is the appropriate ratio of backpack weight to the child's weight. Some studies say the weight that can be carried in a backpack safely is as high as 20% of the child's weight; others suggest that 10% would be better. Backpack Safety America adopts a guideline that a backpack should not weight more than 15% of a child's weight. So the younger a child is and the less he or she weighs, the fewer items should be carried in the backpack. A 10 year old weighing 80 pounds, for example, should not carry a backpack weighing more than 12 pounds.

I went to a small rural high school many, many years ago. I did my homework in free periods and during class and never carried books home. My husband, however, attended a large suburban high school not quite as many years ago; and he says that with six minutes between classes in a school as long as a city block, there was no way you were going to make it to your locker and to class on time, so you kept everything in your backpack. So that means that children are carrying all their textbooks, notebooks and accessories in a backpack pretty much all day long. One suggestion is to have a group of concerned parents work together to get some of these policies changed, allowing kids time to access their lockers, and thus carry less in their backpacks.

Proper backpack wearing is important, too. One important feature is the waist strap. I carry my one year old in a frame backpack made for children, and if that waist strap isn't tight enough, my shoulders and neck are sore for days. Make sure you and your child know how to tighten the waist strap of the backpack appropriately. In a growing child, continuous pulling of the ligaments, muscles and bones of the neck, shoulders, and spine can result in pain and posture problems as an adult.

It's easy to grab a backpack and just sling it across one shoulder. I am guilty of that myself when I carry a backpack-type purse or diaper bag. But when that backpack contains 15% of a child's body weight, wearing it on one shoulder is going to severely impact the nerves in that shoulder area over time. Sometimes children acquire what is known as "scapular winging." This condition occurs when the nerve that supplies the shoulder muscle is pinched, and causes the muscle to not work properly. Make sure your child or teenager knows how important it is to wear the backpack distributed across both shoulders.

The concern for backpack safety is that repeated incorrect use of backpacks that result in continuous inappropriate use of muscles and nerves has a long-term impact on the skeletal and muscular structure of a child's body. A paper was published in the American Academy of Pediatrics Journal in 2003 that gave the results of backpack injuries in a year. At first glance the results look heartening. The largest percentage of backpack injuries was caused by tripping over a backpack. But that study was looking at acute damage, not structural damage done over time.

Another suggestion to help reduce the weight of your child's backpack is to purchase an additional set of textbooks for use at home. This isn't practical for most of us; and it doesn't solve the problem of middle and high schoolers carrying books from class to class for most of the day. The best ways to help your child include:

Check the weight of the backpack.

Make sure the straps fit properly across the shoulders, and are wide and padded.

Make sure your child uses the waist strap correctly.

Watch: if the child hunches over to correct the heavy backpack pulling him backwards, it's too heavy.

It doesn't hurt to have regular checkups at a chiropractor's office either. Adjustments may help minimize some of the damage a heavy backpack causes.