An Australian study revealed that schoolbag use does not appear to increase the risk of back pain in children and adolescents.
Guidelines published by different organizations recommend limits on backpack weight for children, ranging from 5 percent to 20 percent of their body weight.
Study leader Tie Parma Yamato of the University of Sydney in New South Wales told Reuters Health in an email: “According to popular opinion, schoolbags are a problem for kids. Many parents and even health professionals believe that schoolbags can be harmful for children, being the cause of their back pain.”
“The main factors said to cause back pain in kids are the weight of the schoolbag, the way kids wear them and the design of the bag, but the lack of review evidence is concerning.”
“Because of this, we decided to investigate the research in this area to better understand the relationship between schoolbags and back pain,” she said.
As reported in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, Parma Yamato and colleagues reviewed 69 studies related to schoolbag use and back pain. The studies involved a total of more than 72,000 children.
Five of the studies looked at schoolbag use and the development of back pain over time. One of the studies reported that children who said they have difficulty carrying their schoolbags had a higher risk of persistent back pain and another found that the perceived weight of schoolbags was associated with high back pain risk.
However, when the investigators reviewed the studies, they did not find evidence that schoolbag characteristics, such as weight, design and carriage method, increased the risk of developing back pain, Reuters reported.
Evidence from the other studies, which did not follow kids over time, did not show any consistent pattern of association between schoolbag use and back pain.
Parma Yamato said: “People mistakenly think back pain in kids is an injury and so look for a cause of the back injury and the schoolbag is an easy target to lay blame at.”
“Physical activity and load are actually good for the spine, so we want kids to be physically active and to carry loads.”
