This post is the second in my Wellness Wednesday series brought to you in sponsored partnership with Aurora Health Care.
Now that all the students are back in school and the year is in full swing, students are starting to move into a heavier workload. As their workload gets heavier, so do their backpacks. If your child is anything like mine, they are full of complaints about everything school related those first few weeks. But if your child is complaining about a heavy backpack, do they have a valid concern? They just might.
Some years, heavy backpacks have caused over 22,000 injuries including strains, sprains, dislocations (ouch!) and in severe cases even fractures. Injuries can affect both tissue and muscles and most often affect the neck, shoulder, and back and can result in life-long pain.
How can you tell if your child’s backpack is too heavy?
There are a few signs that can tip you off that your child’s backpack is too heavy. Does your child have pain while wearing their backpack? Do they complain of numbness or tingling in their arms, hands, or fingers? Do you see red marks on their neck or shoulders after wearing the backpack? Do you see your child struggling to put on or take off the backpack and do you see a change in their posture once they have it on? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you will want to take another look at how much weight they are carrying in that backpack.
The medical experts at Aurora recommend that your child’s backpack weigh no more than 10 to 15 percent of your child’s total body weight. To put that into perspective:
- If your child weighs 40 pounds, the pack should weigh no more than 4 to 6 pounds.
- If your child weighs 58 pounds, the pack should weigh 5.8 to about 8 pounds or less.
- If your child weighs 72-pound the pack should weigh less than 7 to 11 pounds.
It’s amazing how quickly just a few items can add up to that maximum recommended weight.
So what can you do to help make your child’s backpack a little safer?
Instruct your child to use both straps of the backpack. I’m especially guilty of slinging my backpack over one shoulder and went through most of college doing this. It’s actually much better for your back to use both straps as this distributes the weight in the bag more evenly. if the bag has a chest or waist belt, encourage your child to use it. These are designed to help take some of the stress off of the back as well. Finding a backpack with padded straps can also make wearing it more comfortable.
If your child’s school has a bottle filling station, encourage your child to bring an empty, reusable water bottle to school and fill it there rather than bringing beverages with them. Since Josh needs to stay hydrated with lots of water due to a medical condition, we always sent him to elementary school with a big bottle of water. It is amazing how much weight one big bottle can add! Now that he is in middle school, he brings an empty bottle and fills it at school.
Encourage your child to only bring home the items they need for that day. It is tempting for kids to put their entire locker into their bag to avoid forgetting something. We switched Josh over to a lightweight multi-subject binder rather than having a separate binder for each subject and that has helped a lot. Encourage your child to put the heaviest items in the back of the bag, closest t his or her back. If there is a day where more books need to come home and the backpack is too heavy, encourage your child to bring a tote bag or carry a few in their arms.
The easiest way to get a true picture of how much your child’s backpack weighs is to use a luggage scale to get an accurate weight. (You can grab one for under $10 and they also come in handy for avoiding those overweight baggage fees when you fly!)
For more information and helpful resources about backpack safety for kids, check out this article from Aurora!
Backpacks are essential to a kid’s school day, but they can be really hard on their backs. This is incredibly important information for parents to know.
This is so important for every parent to read! Heavy backpacks can cause real physical harm over time. We have to be really careful!
This is incredibly important. Last year, one of my kids was continually complaining about back pain. We were examining the bed and everything else we could think of. It turned out to be the SUPER heavy backpack!
What a smart idea to fill the bottle at school (and by the way, I don’t think I have ever seen a fountain like that, genius!). What I HAVE seen are little tiny kids getting off of the bus and their poor little backs – bless their heart – their satchels are most ALWAYS bigger than they are!!
These are really nice suggestions to consider. Many children suffer from this heavy backpack.
My kids wear both straps because I make them, but the older two don’t like it. My girls both seem to feel the need to pack half their belongings into backpacks every day which adds so. Much. Weight.
Maybe if I show them this article they will listen? ??
It is definitely important to make sure kids backpacks aren’t too heavy. Books weigh more than you think.
I kind of hate that my kids tote so much heavy stuff around. I wish they kept some of their books at school.
This is one of my concerns, because it will definitely affect their health. Some kids get scoliosis because of the way they carry their backpacks and because of its weight. I think this is such a good reminder for parents.
At least my two use both straps so it’s balanced on the shoulders and back, I see so many kids that do the one shoulder thing…. horrible on the back and neck.
It can be so bad for their back to haul those heavy bags around all the time. It really is important to make sure their backpacks aren’t too heavy. Great tips! We will have to get a luggage scale.
That’s such a concern for parents especially since it could greatly affect their child’s health. It’s really important that their backpacks aren’t heavier than what the standard weight should be.
This is really great. Our third grader just asked for a rolling backpack because her backpack is so heavy with her laptop for school.
I remember how heavy my backpack used to be when I was a kid. I like that our school has textbooks at home and at school for our kids to use.
As a mother this concerns me a lot. It could really affect my boys’ bone health especially since they’re growing up. This is important for parents to look at.
This is a battle is go through everyday. I wind up carrying their backpacks – all three of them, and its totally because of their water bottles.
We ended up choosing a wheeled backpack for that reason last year. Those textbooks are too heavy to lug back and forth every day!
Thank you for this post. I see so many kids walking to school in a stooped posture, trying to adjust their center of gravity because of the weight of their back packs. I wish all schools would provide children with lockers so they don’t have to take their textbooks back and forth between home and school. They can take home only the books they need to do homework and leave the rest in their lockers.
Great tips! Parents must take this seriously. We don’t want our kids to have problems with their spine later on. I think this would also be a good topic during PTA meetings. Lugging heavy textbooks to and from school is too much for a young child.