Children, Chiropractic, and Backpacks
By Michael Dorausch, D.C.
It’s that time of year again, kids are heading back to school or getting ready to head back to school within the next week or two. They will be loading up with books, mobile phones, iPods and whatever else kids carry nowadays in those bags that often times appear that if you added one more item the kid carrying it would fall right over. I was browsing some news headlines from around the world and came across two recent articles related to kids carrying backpacks.
The Association of New Jersey Chiropractors is featured in a New Jersey Courier-Post article that offers suggestions for children carrying backpacks. According to the ANJC, children who carry backpacks are suffering more and more from back pain as well as headaches, posture problems, and various other health problems.
Get the complete article here.
The second article comes from the London Free Press and it features chiropractors in Ontario and the Ontario Chiropractic Association. Ontario chiropractors are suggesting that students “pack it light and wear it right.” According to the OCA, backpacks that are too heavy or are warn incorrectly can be dangerous to a child’s back, neck and shoulders.
Get the complete article here.
If you see your child lying on their backpack like a turned over tortoise chances are that pack is just too heavy. And don’t forget, using your backpack as a weapon (like hurling it at your little brother) can be hazardous to one’s health.
Seriously now, both of the articles mentioned above provide some useful information that can help kids avoid potential spinal problems as a result of carrying backpacks incorrectly or using ones that are too heavy.
If you are seeking more information about chiropractic and kids, there is no better Internet resource then the International Chiropractic Pediatric Associations web site for parents. Check out the ICPA Research Foundation web site.
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A note about news links: many online media web sites do not maintain active links for long periods of time. When you come across articles you like it’s always a good idea to save them for off-line viewing in case the source links go dead. In Internet Explorer you can do a “file > save as” and in Firefox you can do a “file > save page as” command so that the article or web page you’re visiting will be available on your computer. For more information contact your local web guru.
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