September 17th is Backpack Awareness Day! Synergy Family Health in Oviedo would like you to know about how you can protect your grade schoolers, high schoolers and college-bound children against chronic back and neck injuries from carrying ill-fitting and extra heavy backpacks.

Backpacks and Chronic Back Pain

Carrying overweight backpacks can cause acute and chronic back pain, should pain and neck pain. It can cause minor problems in the alignments of the vertebrae and contribute to poor posture. This can be especially true for older high school students and college attendees that may need to carry their backpacks all day.

Tips for Backpack Safety

• Weight no more than 10 percent of your child’s total weight
• Contain individualized compartments for easy storage and toting
• Wide padded shoulder straps and a waist strap
• Instill proper lifting and carrying techniques

Our chiropractor can help you teach your school age children about backpack safety and spinal health. The first step to ensuring the health of your child’s spine is to make sure you purchase a book bag that is well-padded. The back and shoulder straps should contain foam padding. This helps distribute the weight and makes the bag more comfortable to carry. The second important tip for book bag safety is to never load the bag heavier than 10 percent of your child’s weight. This means that if you have a child that weighs 80 pounds, the bag should not weight more than 8 pounds.

It is also important to instill good lifting techniques and proper posture while carrying the book bag. Children should be taught to lift heavy packs with their legs, position the bag on both shoulders and to carry the bag without leaning forward.

Synergy Family Health's chiropractor can teach your child how to carry and lift his or her book bag and diagnose and treat back and neck pain in your whole family. We offer holistic chiropractic care that is designed to lessen back pain, improve posture and heal current and old injuries.

It is integral to spinal health not only to practice book bag safety, but to ensure that your neck, back and spine can get the proper care. Happy Backpacking!