Keeping Your Kids Safe as They Head Back to School this Fall
We hear about it every year... kids and heavy backpacks. What can parents do to help their child stay healthy and what are the signs and symptoms that their child is carrying way too much on their back?
Phoenix, AZ (PRWEB) July 20, 2006
The new school year is about to begin and lots of parents are looking into a backpack for their child to carry books and lunches and school supplies. But did you know that overloaded backpacks are contributing to increased visits to doctors offices? The problems include back and neck aches, fatigue and physical stress. The Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates that 4,928 emergency room visits a year result from injuries related to book bags and backpacks.
Try this: multiply the 12 pounds in an average student's backpack by 10, which is the approximate number of times a student lifts a backpack a day. Now that you've got 120 pounds, multiply that by the 180 days of school in a year and you've got 21,000 pounds!
That's 21,000 pounds one kid lifts in a year just with his backpack. This nearly equals 11 tons, or six midsize cars.
According to the American Chiropractic Association and the American Occupational Therapy Association, students should carry no more than 10 percent of their body weight in their backpacks. Now multiply 0.1 by your weight and then weigh your backpack. Does your load exceed your limit?
Here are some clues to a parent that their child might be having issues caused by a heavy backpack: aside from the obvious neck and back pain, parents should be aware of complaints of headaches or dizziness. These two are symptoms that will occur first before the neck and back pain.
Schools screen for scoliosis and this is a condition that can be something the child can be born with and then exacerbated by a heavy backpack, or it can also be a condition produced from the constant wearing of the extra weight on the back. Parents might think about having a set of books for home (if possible) to aleviate this all together.
A chiropractor can teach the parents what to look for in possible structural changes in their child which may indicate a problem before the symptoms occur. Such as: looking at the child from behind to check the level of the shoulders, ear over the seam line on the shoulder (head forward), a hip high or low, foot pronation etc. These are all visual tools that can easily be used to evaluate at home.
BONE AND JOINT WELLNESS CENTER is located at 7701 E. Indian School Road, Suite H, Scottsdale, AZ: For more information, call 480-990-2663 or visit their websites at www. drmikestaub. com or www. drhudson. com
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