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Your Back Hates Your Backpack
Child and adult spines become misshapen when people don’t follow this advice
With some students returning to schools where lockers aren’t available due to Covid-19 prevention efforts, parents would be wise to make sure their children have the right backpack and that it’s packed properly and not overloaded, lest the load reshape a young spine and cause unnecessary pain.
In fact, potential posture problems and pain caused by inadequate packs and poor packing practices extend to anyone of any age who routinely carries a load, whether it’s in a briefcase, messenger bag, gym bag — perhaps a Covid-inspired backpack for rediscovering nature — or even a small purse. Especially if a person is mostly sedentary.
But “load carriage,” as researchers call it, doesn’t have to be such a headache if a person has the right bag for the job, understands how carrying it in various ways can affect their body mechanics, and takes a few simple precautions.
Degeneration in kids’ backs like never before
“I’ve been in practice for 30 years now,” says Scott Bautch, president of the Council on Occupational Health at the American Chiropractic Association (ACA), who I spoke to prior to the pandemic. “Degeneration that I never saw in children’s backs, I’m seeing in children’s backs now.” Technology and lack of physical activity have created “horrible posture” in people young and old, he says. “I have very young people with old backs.”
There has been “very little research” into back pain among children, says Peter Fabricant, MD, an orthopedic surgeon at the Hospital of Special Surgery in New York whose recent study addresses that shortcoming. About 15% of 10-year-olds say they’ve had back pain in the past year, and with each year of age the figure rises, to about 45% of 18-year-olds, according to the research published earlier this year in the journal Spine.
Among all ages 10 to 18, 8.9% report severe back pain in the past year. The study does not show whether the problem has grown over time, and it did not investigate causes, but the researchers did determine this: “Compared to participants that did not use a bag, participants using a backpack with one strap, a backpack…
