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Backpack Safety

Tuesday, 8 September 2015 at 06:44

Don't let your kids carry the weight of the world on their backs - they should only be carrying 10 - 15% of their body weight.

As you send the kids out the door for their first morning back to school, you might want to double check their backpacks.

Oxford County Public Health Nurse Barb Ledgley tells us not all backpacks are created equal. "So you want to have a little bit wider straps so that they don't dig in. A padded back on the backpack is a really nice thing. Not everybody uses it but there is often a waist belt on backpacks that help to distribute the weigh evenly. And having it adjusted properly so that it's not hanging down at the back of the legs on the really short JK kids." Kindergarten students sometimes carry bags meant for older kids, and it can cause problems for them. The bag should sit pretty close to the body.

Even if you do get the correct, ergonomically sound bag for your children there is still danger in how they carry them. "If you do wear the backpack over one shoulder you tend to lean to one side to compensate for the difference in balance and that can lead to shoulder strains and neck injuries," Ledgley says. "Smaller students are definitely more at risk for that kind of thing than big teenage boys."

With all those books and shiny new school supplies it's easy to send the kids off with a little too much weight resting on their small shoulders. "They recommend no more than 10 - 15 percent of your body weight in that backpack so if you've got a few big chemistry textbooks and some binders and some weights and some shoes you could be over doing it," says Ledgley. "If you have an 80 pound child say in grade 4 or 5, that child really shouldn't carry more than 8 - 10 pounds."

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