Jessica Sapel

As children have started back to school, the books, binders, papers, and folders are adding up to equal one heavy backpack.  Carrying a very heavy bag every day for an entire school year can cause pain in your child's neck, shoulders, and back and may cause them to walk with poor posture as they try to compensate for the extra weight.  In general a child's backpack should weight about 10% of what they do, up to 20% can still be acceptable.  A few schools have the option to have one set of books at school and another for home to limit the amount children have to carry, but if that is not an option, here are some suggestions to help your child be more comfortable carrying their things back and forth to school:

~Use a traditional 2 straps over the shoulder backpack instead of a cross body messenger bag, which can put strain more on one side of the body and cause the child to walk unevenly

~Look for over the shoulder backpacks with wide straps and chest or waist straps to distribute the weight more evenly through the body

~Make sure the straps are snug enough for the backpack to sit up higher on the back, rather than low on the waist and hips, which will cause your child to curve their spine in an unnatural way

~Load the bag correctly with the heaviest books in the back of the bag that will be closest to your child's body, moving the lighter things towards the front of the bag, further away from the body.  The closer the weight is to the body, the less strain it will cause on your child's back

If your child is still having back pain after these modifications, they may benefit from physical therapy services to learn some stretches and a strengthening program to help them adjust to the new demands of the school year.