Backpack Bill To Lighten Kids' Load

Preventing A Hunchback Generation

(CBS)  When kids say homework is a pain, they may mean it literally. Carrying heavy books has long been a health concern among parents and school administrators; soon, it may actually be illegal. CBS News Correspondent Tracy Smith reports for The Early Show’s Study Hall."


“I feel like an old lady,” says Debbie. The girl is part of a growing population of book-toting-troupers, lugging, wheeling and complaining about the fact that their backpacks are too heavy.

The American Association of Chiropractors says children shouldn't carry around more than 10-15 percent of their body weight. But according to Smith’s scale, one child was carrying 25 lbs., as much as a young child weighs. Most kids are schlepping a lot more!

How will these children look when they get to be 50 years old? A boy hunches over to demonstrate his answer.

A generation of hunchbacks? Not if Assemblyman Peter Barnes can help it.

“The essence of the problem are the books,” he says. Barnes is pushing for a bill that would require New Jersey's State Board of Education to limit the weight of textbooks, used in local classrooms.

“The vehicle that I used was textbooks because that's what the kids complained about,” he says. “They didn't complain about their lunches or their gym clothes. They complained about their heavy textbooks.”

It's a law that's already lightening loads in California, where Gov. Gray Davis just recently signed a similar measure.

But some feel the issue goes beyond books.

“The real reason kids are carrying heavy backpacks is because, for security reasons, some schools have eliminated lockers or kids don't have enough time between classes to go to them,” says Steven Driesler, executive director of the American Association of Publishers. He says, books can be made lighter, but they won't last as long, and financially strapped schools will have to foot a bigger bill.

“I don't think it's only the book companies fault, I think that it's book companies, it’s administrators, it's teachers, it’s the people who write the books. It's everyone. It's a serious problem and I think we need to work together to help eliminate it,” says one superintendent.

Until then, it will be tough to muffle middle schooler's cry for help.

One school in California has solved the backpack dilemma by eliminating textbooks entirely, replacing them with CD-Roms. But that's expensive for schools, and a lot of pupils don't have computers at home.