Elsevier

The Lancet

Volume 354, Issue 9194, 4 December 1999, Page 1974
The Lancet

Research Letters
Backpack as a daily load for schoolchildren

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(99)04520-1Get rights and content

Summary

34·8% of Italian schoolchildren carry more than 30% of their bodyweight at least once a week, exceeding limits proposed for adults. Given increasing evidence of back pain in children, the time has come to propose some limitations to backpack load.

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  • Optimization of backpack loads using gait parameters in school boys

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    Disturbance of load carriage will contribute to osteoarthritis, and this aspect is discussed in existing literature (Gomoll et al., 2016). This finding lends credence to the role of gait deviation as an early screening tool for cumulative trauma disorders of the lower limb (Grimmer et al., 2002; Negrini et al. 1999; Hong and Brueggemann 2000). Our findings are in sharp contradiction to a study on the effects of backpack loads on kinematic variables of gait on normal school-going girls, which concluded that there are no gross changes noted during ambulation with and without backpacks (Chow et al., 2005).

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    In the United States, fourth and fifth grade students carry a mean backpack loads of 10% and 12% of their body weights, respectively (Forjuoh et al., 2003). In Italy, school children carry backpack loads with a median average load of 9.3 kg or 22% of their body weights (Negrini et al., 1999). In addition, typical backpack loads of Australian school children (age range 8–12 years) are 5.3 kg or 10% of their bodyweight on average (Grimmer and Williams, 2000).

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