Back to school time...
Yep, I'm sorry to ruin your child's holidays but we knew this day was coming eventually.
Although to be honest, this blog shouldn't really just about going BACK to school. For some reason we only talk about back packs when we are about to commence a new school year, but really we need to focus on them the whole year through.
No matter how old the school bag or how old your children are, back packs represent one of the most common physical stressors that children will face in our society. Research suggests that back packs should not be heavier than 10-15% of the body weight of the child carrying it, yet how many times have you picked up your child's bag and thought it would be uncomfortable for YOU to wear?
As a matter of fact, an international study printed in Spine found that 79.1% of children find their backpacks are heavy, and 46.1% complained that their bags caused back pain.
This is made worse by the fact that in the same study, it was discovered that even though nearly half of the students had back pain, 33% of all of the students were still wearing their back packs too low!
If you want an idea of what happens to posture and spines when you wear a back pack incorrectly, see the photos of our amazing practice model Nicholas below. Nicholas has great posture and is more active than an average boy of his age. (On top of that, he is hilarious and an absolute gun for being a part of this post!) As you can see, none of that matters when he wears his bag incorrectly.
Nicholas shows us what happens when your back pack is too low, note that his head is forward, his shoulders are rolled and his low back has increased curve.
The reality is, this overloading and incorrect loading of your child's spine may be putting them at risk of longer term spinal damage.
Add that to the time spent sitting or looking at the screen of a phone or iPad and....well I don't need to tell you what this means for posture.
I have already discussed the issues with poor posture earlier in this blog, (for a look at a more in depth discussion about posture, read the post here) but in summary, poor posture is bad, and the longer it's left unmanaged the worse things get.
So what should you do?
At Align we are concerned about the future of younger generation's health and posture, which is why Martin and I will be providing free back pack assessments to ensure that your child starts the year off with their best foot forward.
It is always fascinating to see how a small adjustment to a child's backpack can have far reaching effects.
If you would like to book a Back Pack assessment for your children, please do not hesitate to contact us on 9696 1057.