{"id":679,"date":"2012-05-16T16:53:46","date_gmt":"2012-05-16T15:53:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stakeholderdesign.com\/?p=679"},"modified":"2013-12-20T15:21:45","modified_gmt":"2013-12-20T15:21:45","slug":"bbc-news-school-bags-cause-back-pain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stakeholderdesign.com\/about\/bbc-news-school-bags-cause-back-pain\/","title":{"rendered":"BBC News: School bags &#8217;cause back pain&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"story_continues_1\">Rucksacks loaded with school books have been linked to higher levels of back pain in a study of Spanish school children.<\/p>\n<p>The findings, <a href=\"http:\/\/adc.bmj.com\/lookup\/doi\/10.1136\/adc-2011-301253\">reported in Archives of Disease in Childhood<\/a>, said many pupils had &#8220;excessively loaded&#8221; backpacks.<\/p>\n<p>This was linked to higher levels of back pain in the 1,403 school children taking part in the study.<\/p>\n<p>The research took place at Hospital da Costa in Burela and University Hospital Son Dureta in Palma.<\/p>\n<p>The report&#8217;s authors said school children should not carry anything which weighs more than 10% of their body weight.<\/p>\n<p>Measurements were taken from pupils aged 12-17 from 11 schools in Northern Spain. It showed that nearly two thirds of pupils had backpacks which broke the 10% rule.<\/p>\n<p>The weight of the bags was then analysed for back pain, measured as at least 15 days in a year with back pain.<\/p>\n<p>The pupils were split into four groups based on the weight of their bags. Pupils in the group with the heaviest bags were 50% more likely to have reported back pain than in the group with the lightest bags.<\/p>\n<p>The report said back pain was a bigger problem in school girls and that the risk increased with age.<\/p>\n<p>The authors concluded: &#8220;The results obtained have strong implications.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Many children transport excessively loaded backpacks, an excess which would not be allowed for workers in employment.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sean McDougall, from the charity Backcare, said: &#8220;The average child in the UK is carrying 15-20% of their body weight to school and back.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Children are also in the habit of carrying bags over just one shoulder.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He advises taking to school only what is needed on any given day and ensuring that backpacks are worn over both shoulders.<\/p>\n<p>Original article published 15 March 2012 and available at: <a title=\"BBC news article on school bags and back pain\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/health-17365880\">http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/health-17365880<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rucksacks loaded with school books have been linked to higher levels of back pain in a study of Spanish school children. The findings, reported in Archives of Disease in Childhood, said many pupils had &#8220;excessively loaded&#8221; backpacks. This was linked to higher levels of back pain in the 1,403 school children taking part in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"blocksy_meta":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8v7cH-aX","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stakeholderdesign.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stakeholderdesign.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stakeholderdesign.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stakeholderdesign.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stakeholderdesign.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.stakeholderdesign.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stakeholderdesign.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stakeholderdesign.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stakeholderdesign.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}