Now that school is starting up, backpacks are becoming a topic of concern.  Did you ever see kids going to or coming from school and sometimes it looks as if the backpacks they are lugging around are bigger than they are?

Dr. Andrew Allen with the Allen Family Chiropractors in Guthrie Center says that the more activities children become involved with throughout the school year, we tend to see the backpacks getting bigger and heavier.  What used to be filled with just books is now getting stuffed with lunches, clarinets and sport shoes.  The weight of the backpack should be 10-15% of the student’s body weight. If a child weighs 70 lbs, their backpack should weigh between 7 and 10.5 lbs.

Dr. Allen said that children who wear backpacks for long periods of time will not only get a sore neck and back, they will encounter numbness and tingling down the arms and into the fingers.  They actually have a name for this and it’s called “backpack paralysis”.

Dr. Allen added that he actually sees more 1-strap over the shoulder bag injuries.  You carry the weight of the bag over one shoulder that could result in injury to the nerves and vessels in the neck.  A little known fact is that your other shoulder has to compensate for the shoulder carrying the weight, if not, you’d tip over; thereby causing unnecessary stress and injury to the muscles in that shoulder.