What’s in those backpacks anyway?
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- July
- 22
What is up with these backpacks that are so heavy that kids are being weighed down like mountaineers? At the risk of sounding like someone who should be leaning on a walker and eating dinner at 4 p.m., I’d like to point out that when I was a kid, we didn’t even carry backpacks! Somehow I managed to bring home all the materials I needed to do my homework without looking like I was ready to hike the Himalayas.
This is on my mind because it’s the time of year when, once again, the obligatory warnings about the dangers of the weight of these things are coming out. Consumer Reports, which is published in Yonkers, is way ahead on this issue. In their research, they found some sixth graders carried 18.4 pounds in the backpacks — about 17.2 percent of their body weight. Consumer Reports recommends staying closer to 10 percent of body weight.
What is in these backpacks, anyway? Pumpkin is several years away from homework assignments and all they entail, so I’m operating without first-hand knowledge. But I ask you other parents: Do kids really need to carry every book home, every night? Is that what makes up the load? Or, are your kids carrying mini survival kits on their backs? I know my daughter, given her druthers, would bring half the contents of her room with her in the car every time we leave the house for a half hour. So far, we’ve managed to keep it down to her Elmo doll (sometimes two Elmo dolls), a book, her sippy cup, a baggie of Annie’s Homegrown Chocolate Bunny Grahams and her purple blanket. Are your third-graders carrying their own equivalent of this in their packs? Is that why they are so heavy?
If you are buying a new backpack this fall, Consumer Reports recommends looking for these features:
• Shoulder straps that are contoured and padded to soften the load of the pack on a child’s back.
• A waist belt to stabilize the pack and transfer weight to the hips.
• A padded or quilted back or one with mesh fabric to make the bag less sweaty on steamy days.
• Compression straps on the sides of the pack to tighten a partially-filled backpack.
• Reflective trim on the back and sides of the pack to add visibility in the fall and winter months, when kids may travel to and from school in near darkness.
Here is the special section on back-to-school at Consumer Reports.
I’m thinking about writing a story about the growth in backpack sales and how these have become a must-have back-to-school item. If anyone would like to lend their insight to the story, send me an e-mail at jalterio@lohud.com or call me at 914-666-6189.
Otherwise, comment here about what the heck is in your kids’ backpacks — unless you’ve been afraid to look!
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on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 at 12:49 pm by Julie Moran Alterio.
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It’s the books. The publishers, McGraw-Hill, Houghton Mifflin, Prentice Hall etc. have this crazy format that appeals more to educators than to students or parents. It’s generally hard-cover 400+ pages, with wide margins (students aren’t usually allowed to write in them), lots of pictures and note boxes that seriously detract from the main text. Honestly I was never assigned to read more than 60% of any of these books, and the average was more around 30%. We’d sometimes keep the same book for 2-3 years, reading parts of it.
I much prefer the style of book which is paper-back, A4, news-print style, with no more than 100 pages per book, with a class using maybe 2-3 of a series. They’re also much cheaper, but generally not American. (I’ve seen them targeted at English students.)
There’s really no good reason for the weight. I once pressed a rep who came to my school when I was a senior, and he stated that the intent was that the students would only carry these books from their lockers to the classroom and back, with occasional visits to a study room or library. That’s not how most schools assign their workload however.