Students Buckle Under Weight of Backpacks
I feel bad for kids in school nowadays. Their lives are heavy on the stress and heavy on the backpack. In all grades, from kindergarten to twelfth, students suffer from having to carry around the big, bad backpacks. Cumbersome bags cause back problems and are unreasonable and inconvenient for a typical day at school. Plus, there are so many simple options for students instead of having a large backpack. Kids should not carry large bags around school because they have more important things to worry about, such as homework and tests, rather than the burden brought by their bulky backpacks.
Overstuffed bags often lead to back pain. Many students lug around their big packs for an entire seven-hour school day and crash on the couch after school, complaining about the strain on their back muscles. When researchers at the University of California at Riverside conducted a study testing nearly 3,500 middle school kids in California for back pain from backpacks, they found that 64 percent of those adolescents suffered from pain and 21 percent felt pain for more than half a year. In addition, they discovered that “[o]f those with pain,…more than 75 percent called it ‘bad’ and more than 12 percent called it ‘very bad.’” If nearly two-thirds of a school’s population hurt because of their bags, then clearly, their backpacks are too weighty. According to the study, some backpacks weighed as much as 37 pounds! The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons suggests that one should carry no more than 15 percent of their weight on their back, but in schools across the country, many kids carry much more than that amount. With the excessive weight on students’ backs, much pain ensues.
Carrying heavy book bags is a huge problem. Luckily, useful alternatives are available for everyone. The first is an easy one: students should use their lockers. Countless lockers fill up school hallways, and these storage units are there for a reason: to be used by students! Students may argue that they do not have time to go to their lockers, but everyone has the opportunity to fit at least one quick trip in his or her schedule, including during passing time, free periods, or lunch. By taking a trip to a locker just once or twice during a day, students can easily drop off books that they would not use and pick up ones they need for later in the day.
Additionally, big backpacks are just plain difficult to deal with. In the hallways, large backpacks seem to crush their owners. However, there is no point in carrying so much stuff, because usually, students do not even need everything in their bags. If they dumped out their loads, they would find that more than half of its contents are useless. Hannah Gilfix, a junior at AB, says that in her freshman and sophomore years, she had a lot of junk in her bag: “I used to have snacks that sometimes spill out, my sweatshirt, my contact solution that I never used, my contacts case, and a bunch of random things that I didn’t need.” But after she removed all the useless items out from the load on her back, she felt much more comfortable.
Who needs a two-inch binder for each one of their five classes? Who needs to lug around a six-pound chemistry textbook and an even heavier history text? Teachers do not want kids to break their backs by carrying all those books around. One way to circumvent this burden is to convince the school’s administration to purchase a second set of textbooks, so that for each student, one copy can be at school and another can be at home. Teachers could share classroom sets with other teachers to keep the cost down. A less costly method involves careful planning. In high school, students usually do not need their textbooks in class. If one wants to do homework during school, one can go to the school library, which has multiple copies of each text for students to use. Many students stop by the library, take a book, and finish their homework in school without having to lug their books in their bags.
Another solution for this problem is to buy a smaller book bag. Kids tend to fill the empty space of a large book bag with unnecessary filler items, which adds to the strain. Buying a smaller backpack means that students will not be able to stuff everything they can into it; a smaller bag will force them to organize their things and use their lockers.
So students—especially freshmen—here is a message for you: you do not need to carry a huge backpack to school! There are so many other options. Keep yourself healthy by not injuring your back. Do not let the big, bad backpack knock you down.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
