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Heavy backpacks can cause disability in children: Study

A study conducted on students from Mangalore’s high schools indicated that a backpack weighing 5% of the child’s body weight can significantly change trunk and lower limb angles of children.

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If your child has been complaining of back, shoulder and neck pains or even headaches, it’s time you weighed his/her school bag. Heavy schools bags can not only affect your child’s posture, but also cause disability.

A study conducted on students from Mangalore’s high schools indicated that a backpack weighing 5% of the child’s body weight can significantly change trunk and lower limb angles of children. If the backpack weighs 15% of the child’s body weight, it changes angles pertaining to head, neck, trunk, and lower limb and affects overall posture.

The study published in the latest edition of Indian Pediatrics journal was conducted on pre-adolescent students (aged 12.5 years), by experts from Movement Analysis Lab in Srinivas College of Physiotherapy and Research Centre and Kasturba Medical College in Mangalore.

Back pain is a common problem among children. About 10-30% of healthy teens complain of lower back pain. “For children in cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore, heavy backpacks are a big problem. Notwithstanding a high court ruling which limits the weight of school bags to 10% of child’s body weight, the load on children’s back is increasing. There is a substantial increase in the number of complaints relating to shoulder aches and backaches among children, which is a cause of worry,” Mumbai-based paediatrician Dr Samir Dalwai said.

The study said daily physical stress associated with carrying backpacks causes the head and trunk to lean forward. This could result in pain and disability in children given the fact that growth of the skeletal system among children occurs during puberty.

The study, therefore, called for awareness to restrict backpack load to less than 5% of the body weight by using school lockers, CDs and USB flash drives. It also stressed on the need to monitor musculoskeletal problems. 

Reduced use of student lockers, increased use of laptop, computers and carrying non-educational loads such as musical instruments and sports equipment have increased student exposure to heavy load carriage, an editorial accompanying the study said. 

Reducing the load of school bags has been a major cause of concern for educationists. Based on the recommendation of the Professor Yashpal Committee, the HRD ministry had asked the National Council of Education Research and Training to rework school syllabus to reduce the load of books. The Central Board of Secondary Education has also framed guidelines for its affiliated schools to reduce backpack loads. These include keeping the number of textbooks limited, no school bags for students in classes I and II, allowing students to leave their bags in school and planning a time-table to avoid loading of school bags.

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