Big backpacks are bad news

For my birthday last week, my sweet wife bought me a really sharp Ant shoulder-bag for my gear. She said she was tired of seeing me drag around a big nerdy backpack, a habit I developed in elementary school that stuck with me. Hopefully, she wasn't too late to break me of the backpack addiction. A Northeastern University professor confirms anecdotal evidence that big backpacks cause bad backs. She also provides some helpful guidelines:

* As a rule, kids should never carry a bag that weighs more than 10% of their body weight. This rule applies to all students, no matter what age. "If your child is unable to stand up straight with the pack on, the load is too heavy," explains Hickey.

* Remind your kids about the value of lockers. Reducing backpack poundage will prevent any serious back pain in the future.

* The bigger the bag, the more stuff kids will cram into it. Purchase a smaller backpack that will only fit the bare necessities. This will prevent kids from lugging around those leftovers from lunch, notes passed in math class, or half-melted chapsticks.

* Periodically remind your child to clean out trash and remove old papers and homework to lighten his or her load.

Good advice for even the, well, bigger kids. Link

UPDATE:BB reader Jamie Bakum says, "Be aware that despite a heavy backpack's problems, they're generally balanced, and a really heavy load on one shoulder can be worse than a load spread across two. I have two friends who were told by doctors to switch from shoulder bags TO backpacks to alleviate back pain that had cropped up from compensating for a load on one side."