Ohhh my aching back… pack
Familiar with the term "growing pains" right? Health care providers use this term to describe the aches and pains children experience in their joints and limbs as a result of rapid growth.
Previous research has shown up to 50 per cent of all 15 and 16-year olds experience some sort of back pain. One study attributes this not to growing pains, but something entirely different: backpacks.
A child was classified as suffering from back pain if they met one or more of the following requirements in the preceding month: neck or back pain that interfered with school or leisure activities; pain with a severity rating of 2 or more (on a scale of 0 to 10); a visit to a physician or therapist for neck or back pain; being exempted from physical activity because of neck or back pain
74.4 per cent of the children surveyed were classified as having back pain. Among the key points:
- Adolescents with back pain displayed "significantly poorer" general health scores performed fewer physical activities, and had more general bodily pain.
- Significant relationships drawn between the incidence of lower back pain and both the weight of the backpack and the amount of time the backpack was used.
- Females were more than twice as likely to experience back pain.
Additionally, girls who carried a purse along with their backpack had significantly more back pain than girls who did not.
Backpacks appear to be a leading contributor to back pain in adolescents. If you have a young child, check his or her backpack to ensure that it isn't too heavy. You may also want to consider buying your child a wheeled backpack, which can take a tremendous amount of stress off his or her back. And of course, regular visits to your local chiropractor can do a world of good, too!
Sheir-Neiss G, Kruse R, Rahman T, et al. The association of backpack use and back pain in adolescents. Spine, May 1, 2003: Volume 28, Number 9, pp.922-930
