School starts: beware of schoolbags for schoolchildren, the’warning issued by chiropractic doctors
School begins and as always among moms there is the traditional dilemma of backpacks that must be proportionate to the child’s development. According to chiropractors, about 85 percent of boys and adolescents between 11 and 16 years old are struggling with back pain, mainly due to backpacks on their shoulders. These experts have been dealing with this phenomenon for about a decade, having found malformations due to weight or poor bearing. These “first contact” health professionals, strongly recommend that parents be vigilant and make their children observe the so-called “2p” rule; that is, weight limit and appropriate posture.
Specifically, the boy should carry a load no more than one-tenth of his weight and balance it as best he can.
In fact, our students’ backpacks are too heavy: they reach in most cases a load of 22 to 27, 5 percent of the child’s total weight, while they should not exceed 15 to 20 percent. Yet this has nothing to do with scoliosis, a condition that primarily affects the female gender and which we now know has very specific and different causes, mostly genetic. What is certain, however, is that the continuation of excessive loads related to sedentary lifestyle can promote the onset of back pain, musculoskeletal pain and cervicalgia, especially in weak and untrained physiques. In such cases, postural gymnastics can be helpful.
Giovanni D’Agata, president of the “Sportello dei Diritti,” therefore, ivolves a call first and foremost to teachers, who must plan class schedules without making unforeseen changes that would result in students having to bring all books, even unnecessary ones, to school, lest misunderstandings.
Parents are also called upon to do their part, checking that their children have only the books for the day’s lessons and their notebooks in their backpacks. Boys often, in fact, out of laziness and superficiality, tend not to take the previous days’ books out of their backpacks.
