ABCs of Backpack Safety

(CBS)  With schools resuming all across the nation, most kids will be wearing incredibly heavy backpacks.

Last year, more than 8,000 Americans went to the emergency rooms due to backpack-related injuries.

On "The Early Show" Monday, Dr. Alanna Levine, of the American Academy of Pediatrics described how to wear a backpack correctly, and appropriate weight limits.

She says wearing backpacks incorrectly or carrying too much in them can cause strained muscles in the neck and back, resulting in neck, back and shoulder pain.

Parents should look for lightweight bags with wide, padded shoulder straps, Levine says, adding that backpacks should rest evenly on the middle of the back, and shoulder straps should be adjusted to allow children to take them off without difficulty. Youngsters should wear both shoulder straps -- it might not be cool, but it will save them some pain and take the pressure off any one side. Straps shouldn't be too loose or extend below the lower back.

To avoid starting or worsening back or neck problems, it might be a good idea to get two sets of books, if you can afford to, one for school, one for home, Levine recommends that older kids take frequent trips to their lockers, so they're not carrying a heavy load throughout the day.

If the school permits rolling backpacks (though some hallways aren't wide enough to accommodate them), Levine suggests using them.

Backpacks should be no more than 10-20 percent of a child's total body weight.

When picking backpacks up, kids should bend at the knees, not the back.

Levin also pointed out that parents shouldn't put a child's name on the outside of a backpack, for safety reasons: When the child is walking home from school, you don't want a predator to be able to call him or her by name.

She also recommends that parents put kids' contact information somewhere in the bag, just in case anything happens to them.

[howbizarre]

Nice advice, but not practical. At my kids' high school, the freshmen lockers are so far away from their classes that they can't go to the lockers at all between classes. They have to carry all their books the entire day. I don't think they're being pansies by not wanting to carry around 40% of their body weight in books all day. Perhaps displeased should carry around 40% of his/her weight all day and then see if he/she wants to call it being a pansy. And yes, my kids are small and thin. Perhaps if I had fed them too much and allowed them to be couch potatoes they would be obese, and then the books wouldn't be 40% of their weight.

[displeased]

Purchase two sets of books so kids don't have to carry a heavy load? Come on now. How about we stop raising a bunch of pansies!