We’ve got your back
Lighten your child’s load when school opens
What with all the back-to-school messaging everywhere, many kids already feel like they have the weight of the world on their shoulders. Throw in a heavy backpack and they’re not only lugging around a painful load, but a potentially dangerous one too.
Overloaded and oversized backpacks are one big pain! They can end up sending kids to the doctor’s office, says Dr. Scott Bautch, a chiropractor who specializes in occupational health and ergonomics. “With the combination of carrying backpacks much too heavy for a child’s physical abilities and an increasing sedentary lifestyle, children are reporting back pain at similar rates as adults.”
Along with being overloaded and heavy, kids rarely wear them properly. “If backpacks are worn incorrectly over long periods of time, not only can they cause back, shoulder, or neck pain, they can result in changes in posture and gait,” reports chiropractic.ca. It can affect a child’s musculoskeletal health — both today and in the future.
To help your kids avoid back, neck and shoulder pain, consider the following tips from Bautch and acatoday.org:
Make sure your child’s backpack weighs no more than five to 10 per cent of his or her body weight. A heavier backpack will cause your child to bend forward in an attempt to support the weight on his or her back, rather than on the shoulders with the straps. The backpack should never hang more than four inches (10 cm), below the waistline. A backpack that hangs too low increases the weight on the shoulders, causing your child to lean forward when walking. Urge your child to wear both shoulder straps. While trendy, lugging the backpack around by one strap can cause the disproportionate shift of weight to one side, leading to neck and muscle spasms, as well as lowback pain. Choose a backpack with wide, padded straps. Choose adjustable shoulder straps. The backpack should be fitted to your child’s body. Straps that are too loose can cause the backpack to dangle uncomfortably and cause spinal misalignment and pain.