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 13 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 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 how many times I’ve sent my children to school with extra things in their backpack, like library books, changes of clothes, along with a whole lot of other unnecessary things.
So remember Daniel’s magic rules. “Look after your child’s back. Don’t over pack your kids backpack!”
Daniel Ryken's extra tips for backpacks
- If your child does have other things that they have to take extra things to school for things like library day, or sports day. Try taking it in a separate bag. Ideally, they won’t need to lug them around with them for the whole day.
- A large, full drink bottle is quite heavy. However, drinking plenty of water and staying hydrated is very important. A smaller drink bottle can be refilled throughout the day, limiting the weight your child is carrying around.
- Keep it to the bare essentials. I’m married to a primary school teacher and trust me, they don’t want a room full of tech decks, fidget spinners and slime etc etc etc!
