By John Hyde
In high school, her backpack would sag a good foot off her shoulder. It wasn?t comfortable, but that was the style. It was for the same reason in junior high she slung her bag over one shoulder and one shoulder only.
?I was already a nerd anyway,? remembers Laura Jones, who grew up in California and graduated from BYU in August. ?Wearing two straps wasn?t going to help any.?
While her one-strap lifestyle might have saved face, it turns out it might have also had detrimental health effects. More than 10 years later, she has a tendency to lean to one side when she walks, like she?s still trying to compensate for her junior high book bag. Her chiropractor has told her that her tilted lean is a contributing factor to her back pain.
Jones is part of a new trend in youthful generations who are suffering from back pain. The American Chiropractic Association reports that there are more and more young people visiting the chiropractor than ever before, and studies show that heavy backpacks?and the way they are worn?can lead to both back pain and poor posture.
According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, backpack-related injuries have increased 300 percent over the last 10 years. In 2001 alone, 7,000 people went to the emergency room with a type of backpack injury.
?We treat a lot of kids who have chronic back pain,? said Dr. S R Rutkowski, who has a chiropractic office in Orem. ?And if you think about it, where does it come from? They?re carrying a 50 lb. bag around when they only weigh 90. It can?t be good.?
Health care professionals agree. In order to avoid both short-term and chronic health concerns, the ACA recommends backpacks weigh no more than 10 percent of the carrier?s body weight. A recent study cited by the ACA, however, found that the average child?s bag is 22 percent of his or her body weight.
?I don?t remember bags being that big when I was a kid,? Rutkowski said. ?I look at my kids? bags, and these things are heavy. I mean heavy.?
Although there?s no question that a disproportionately heavy bag is bad for the back, not everyone would agree that backpacks deserve such a bad rap.
?It is a problem, but it?s not as significant as the press is making it out to be,? said Dr. Eric Brady, a Provo chiropractor. Backpacks very rarely would cause any permanent damage, he said, and pose much less of a threat than poor posture does. ?You could probably make an argument that if people tried good posture a backpack could even strengthen the back,? he said.
Heavy bags plague BYU students, but more students wear their bags properly. Some students, like 19-year-old Laura Thatcher, even two-time it: one bag for books, binders and lunch, the other for a laptop. Taken together, she?s carrying about 45 lbs.
When asked if her bags bother her back, Thatcher just shakes her head.
?If you have a strong core, a strong back, it?s not going to hurt,? she said.
If a backpack does hurt your back, it?s probably an indicator that your back already has problems, according to Brady.
?What people should be talking about is posture,? he said. ?Poor posture is laming people all the time. Students slouch in their chairs for hours.?
But according to recent studies, backpacks may contribute to poor posture as much as other bad habits, such as slouching. In 2003, Dr. Heidi Orloff presented findings to the American College of Sports Medicine that children actually hunch their bodies forward and lower their heads to accommodate the burden of wearing heavy backpacks. Lands? End Direct Merchants found in another study that a third of children ages 8-12 that wear backpacks do so improperly, like sagging or only over one shoulder.
?The worst thing you can do is wear it over one shoulder because you?re unilaterally loading the spine,? Rutkowski said. And according to a study conducted in France, the longer a child wears a backpack incorrectly the longer it takes for a curvature or deformity of the spine to correct itself.
For Jones, getting her spine back to normal is taking long enough. ?It?s a constant struggle not to let my body lean one way. I have to think about it all the time,? she said.
Although her bag-toting days are not the sole culprit of her back problems, she?s convinced that they created a weakness in her back. Brady, who is her chiropractor, agrees that there could be pre-existing weak spots or problems with structural alignment that are related to backpacks.
With back pain being so pervasive in our society ? 80 percent of Americans will suffer from back pain at some point in their lives?the ACA has recommended the following tips to alleviate some of your backpack pain:
- Make sure your backpack is no more than 10 percent of your body weight.
- The backpack should never hang more than four inches below the waistline.
- Wear both straps, and wear them nice and snug. If your bag has a belt, it should be used to help distribute weight to the hips.
- Bigger is not better.
- Choose a backpack with wide, padded straps and individualized compartments.
(For comments, e-mail John Hyde at johnhyde@byu.net)