Daniel Ryken, owner of Curl Curl Chiropractic on Sydney’s Northern Beaches explains how much a backpack should weigh, and goes through his son’s backpack, Jayden, to make sure it weighs incorrectly.
Do you know how much your child’s backpack should weigh? I’ve been practising as a chiropractor for over 20 years now. It’s always been drummed into me to make sure that children’s backpacks are no more than 10% of their overall body weight. But how much that? As a chiropractor, I have to admit, I was quite surprised how little that was!
When I first weighed my son, he weighed in at 28kg; 10% of this is 2.8kg. Therefore, Jayden, with his backpack on, should weigh no more than 30.8kg. When I re-weighed Jayden with his backpack on, he came in at 32.8kg, so I had to shave off 2kg. To do this, I had to pretty much go back to the bare basics, lunch, drink bottle, handball, homework, plus the weight of the backpack itself. To my surprise, that came in at exactly 2.8kg. It made me think about how many times I’ve sent my children to school with extra items in their backpacks, such as library books, changes of clothes, and a whole lot of other unnecessary things.
So remember Daniel’s magic rules. “Look after your child’s back. Don’t overpack your kids' backpack!”
