Are your kids wearing backpacks that are too heavy?
Researchers use MRI’s to detect the effects of heavy backpacks on children’s spines —
Brought to you from Integrity Chiropractic in Canton, GA
Well…for our kids, the summer is almost over. Cherokee County schools are back in session Monday, August 2nd, 2010. Forsyth County schools are back in session Monday August 9, 2010. Fulton County schools are back in session Monday August 16, 2010. That means it’s time to talk about BACKPACK SAFETY once again. In other words, your child may be wearing a backpack that is too heavy.
Why is this important?
A new article in the esteemed journal Spine from January of this year once again reveals that heavy backpacks have an adverse impact on the spines of young children. I know, I know…Shocker, right?!?
According to the study’s authors “this is the first upright MRI study to document reduced disc height and greater lumbar asymmetry for common backpack loads in children.”
In plain English, this means that as backpacks got heavier, the intervertebral 
discs that cushion your spine got more and more compressed and spines got crooked.
Dr. Timothy Neuschwander of University of California, San Diego, used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), to study the spines of eight children who were an average of 11 years old. They scanned the children first with an empty backpack, then with increasing weights of 9, 18, and 26 pounds. These weights represented approximately 10%, 20%, and 30% of the children’s body weight.
Heavier weights caused intervertebral discs compression and decreased disc height. Heavier loads were also associated with increased sideways curvature (scoliosis) of the lumbar spine, either to the right or the left. Half of the children had a significant spinal curve of at least ten degrees. Most of the children had to adjust their posture to bear the 26-lb backpack load.
I’ve mentioned this before to numerous patients throughout the years, but here it is again. Chiropractors consider a scoliosis of 16 degrees or more to be the point at which the nervous system becomes affected. And because the pelvis and lower back form the foundation for the rest of the spine, a scoliosis in the lower back can lead to structural problems in the mid back and neck that can cause pain and dysfunction in those areas too.
Not surprisingly, the study also found that as backpack weight increased, so did the amount of pain reported by the children.
Although the children were wearing the backpack straps over both shoulders when the MRI scans were performed, the researchers note that spinal curvature could be even greater than ten degrees if the backpack was carried over one shoulder. So parents please, force your kids to look uncool by making them wear their backpacks correctly over BOTH shoulders.
Dr. Neuschwander and his colleagues sum up, “Low back pain in children may be worsened by discogenic or postural changes,” and goes on to add “This could have long-term implications, as children with back pain are at increased risk of having back pain as adults.”
Again, I’ve said this before, but the cause of someone’s symptoms usually begin long before the actual symptoms begin to appear. And as kids’ backpacks get heavier and heavier, more and more of our children will begin to experience lower back pain sooner and sooner in life.
A good rule of thumb is to limit the weight of a backpack to 20 percent of your child’s body weight, so if your child weighs 50 pounds, then his/her backpack should be no more than 10 pounds.
Watching your back,
Dr. Steve Goninan
Integrity Chiropractic
11582 Cumming Highway
Canton, GA 30115
678-400-0202
www.IntegrityChiropractor.net
References:
Spine – January 1, 2010;35:83-88.
P.S. The $37 new patient special will be ending soon on August 9th, 2010. So if you want to refer someone in for the new patient special, which includes an initial examination and X-rays (with no obligation for future care), then get them in by August 9th, 2010.
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