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National School Backpack Awareness Day
Backpack Facts: What's All the Flap About?
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National School Backpack Awareness Day is an annual event held in September. Across the country, events are being held to educate parents,
students, teachers and school administrators, and communities
about the serious health effects on children from backpacks that
are too heavy or worn improperly.
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*(PDF File - Requires Adobe Reader)
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- More than 40 million students in the United
States carry school backpacks.1
- More than 7,000 emergency room visits in 2001
were related to backpacks and book bags.
Approximately half of those injuries occurred in
children 5 to 14 years old.2
- It is recommended that a loaded backpacks weigh
no more than 15% (about one-sixth) of a student's
body weight (for a student weighing 100 pounds, this
means that the backpack should weigh no more than 15
pounds).3
- The average student carries a backpack weighing
almost one fourth of his or her body weight. Three
out of 10 students typically carry backpacks weighing
up to one third of their body weight at least once a
week.4
- In one study with American students, 6 out of 10
students, ages 9 to 20, reported chronic back pain
related to heavy backpacks. Among students who
carried backpacks weighing 15% of their body weight
or less, only 2 in 10 reported pain.5
- The way backpacks are worn has an impact. Lower
positioning of the backpack approximates the
body's center of gravity and has the least effect
on posture.6
- In a study on the effect of backpack education on
student behavior and health, nearly 8 out of 10
middle-school students who changed how they loaded
and wore their backpacks reported less pain and
strain in their backs, necks, and
shoulders.7
Sources:
1 Pascoe, D. D. & Pascoe, D. E.
(1999). Bookbags help to shoulder the burdens of school
work. Teaching Elementary Physical Health,
March, 18-22.
2 The U.S. Consumer Product Safety
Commission National Electronic Injury Surveillance
System (NEISS) database, 2001. Numbers quoted are the
national estimated figures.
3 Negrini, S. & Carabalona, R.
(2002). Backpacks on! Schoolchildren's perceptions
of load, associations with back pain and factors
determining the load. Spine, 27(2),
187-195.
4 Negrini, S., Carabalona, R., &
Sibilla, P. (1999). Backpack as a daily load for
schoolchildren. Lancet, 354(9194), 1974.
5 Iyer, S. R. (2001). An ergonomic study
of chronic musculoskeletal pain in schoolchildren.
Indian Journal of Pediatrics, 68(10),
937-941.
6 Grimmer, K., Dansie, B., Milanese, S.,
Pirunsan, U., & Trott, P. (2002). Adolescent
standing postural response to backpack loads: A
randomized controlled experimental study. BMC
Musculoskeletal Disorders, 3(10), 343-360.
7 Feingold, A. J. & Jacobs, K., The
effect of education on backpack wearing and posture in
a middle school population, Work, 18,
287-294.
*(PDF File - Requires Adobe Reader)
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