Do Kids Need Pack Animals?

Photo: M.Lubinski / CC BY-SA 2.0

Now that school has started again, I expect to be seeing my share of backpack-related back pain again. Obviously, the weights of those packs vary from child to child, but I have weighed many backpacks in my office and found some to top twenty pounds. That is two, ten-pound sacks of potatoes! Another observation has been - the smaller the child, the heavier the backpack. I don't really understand this.

Why are packs so heavy? First, books are heavy and kids often have to lug around ALL of their books to every class. Unlike my school days, many schools have completely eliminated lockers. Why? Apparently kids were hiding contraband in those lockers, such as illegal drugs or weapons. The only things we would find in our lockers two generations ago were ancient lunches, snacks, smelly gym clothes, and of course, the occasional Nerd. In those days, schools had the right to open our lockers anytime that they wanted without fear of the ACLU coming down on the school for violating civil rights or privacy laws. I didn't think we were entitled to any privacy in public schools.

If kids wanted to hide contraband, they can hide a lot of scary stuff into those huge backpacks they are carrying around every day.

Why don't they have wheeled backpacks? They do, but none of the kids will use them because wheeled backpacks are not cool... not cool at all. If they tried using them, they would most likely be stuffed into one of those unused, empty lockers, and permanently labeled as a nerd. It is also not cool to use both straps, like a camping backpack. Kids are expected to use just one strap, hanging on one shoulder. Backs do not like this type of imbalance.

Adolescents get injured in sports all of the time, injuring limbs and backs. Unless they are paralyzed, they want to continue to play football or do cheerleading anyway. Regardless of their injuries, they always ask for a note (see my blog post about notes) for PE. Teen rationale dictates that it is okay to play football with an injury, but not square dance in PE.

I have a solution to bring this on-going back problem to light. Since service animals, such as Seeing Eye Dogs, are protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act, I think I am going to start recommending pack animals to kids with recurrent back pain who must carry heavy loads all day long. I can just see it now; kids walking the halls with miniature donkeys, mules, llamas, or St. Bernard dogs. They can tie up outside the classrooms, or to their desks. They will be novelties at first, but soon, the schools will get used to seeing of animal poop on the floor, llama spit on the walls, and of course, the omnipresent barking and braying. I am really, really tempted to start writing prescriptions for service (pack) animals. Schools won't give our kids some lockers, so let's see if they build some stables.

Heavy backpacks are not the only things responsible for adolescent back pain. Teens tend to have the worst posture ever - the slouch in their chairs, and sit with their backs humped over like Quasimodo. The kids in sports tend to be very active, but a large percentage of teens just come home, raid the fridge, and then plop onto the couch, or more likely, slouch in a chair to play hours of computer games. Inactive, after-school, latchkey kids tend to get fat, and of course, get into mischief.

Several of my patients with back pain have bed issues. For some, there are still sleeping on swayed mattress, handed down from older siblings. Many of the six-foot plus adolescents sleep with their legs hanging over the end of their toddler beds.

I have back problems myself, but mine was not due to lugging around a back pack. I do carry a brief case that could be lighter. My briefcase weighs considerably less than my wife's purse, which incidentally, looks a lot like a backpack without the sleeping bag. I would love to dump out a woman's purse someday, just as an experiment. Once a year, I do make my wife dump out her purse so I can get the hundred or so receipts jammed in there so I can do the taxes. I once found a receipt that was four years old!

I was always told to never look inside a woman's purse. When I was older, I just assumed it was so that curious boys would not find a tampon and think it was dynamite. When my wife goes into a dressing room on those (very) rare occasions that I am with her when she shops, I usually have to sit in the man chair with the other guys and hold her purse. The men sort of nod at each other, but none of us are digging around trying to see what is so heavy in there, perhaps expecting an anvil.

Women with children get very adept at carrying heavy loads - a heavy purse and a diaper bag hanging on one shoulder, balanced out with a huge, squirming toddler on the other arm. I am often amazed in my clinic, when I lift up one of those "big ones" onto the exam table, how deceptive their weight can be. Even some of the "little ones" are dense as lead. Maybe I am just getting weaker. At the end of the day, my back is starting to hurt. I don't know how these Moms do it. I have a hidden rule: if I see a baby with more than two chins and no neck, I let the Mom pick them up.

My old college roomate, Robert, was planning a six-month long backpacking trip to Tahiti, Fiji, New Zealand, and Australia (must be nice). I had to watch him everyday, packing and unpacking his backpack, trying to make room for both summer and winter clothes and balance his load. He actually used my postage scale to actually weigh socks! After about a hundred packings and unpackings, he finally was satisfied. He was in the shower the morning of his departure; his carefully weighed and balanced backpack sat by the door. As I went out to get the morning newspaper, my evil eye spotted a loose brick sitting next to a garden wall. Smiling, I picked up the brick, and rushed into the house. I quickly unpacked his backpack, pulled out his down jacket in the bottom (for the winter in New Zealand), and carefully hid this five pound red brick. I finished repacking his bag as I heard the shower stop.

Over the next several months, I anxiously awaited those postcards from exotic places; and pictures of his lazy butt sitting on the beach in Fiji. I would smile when I would see that backpack sitting under a swaying palm tree. Then one day, my long-awaited postcard arrived.

"You SOB! I found that brick!" I had attached a note asking that he please deliver this brick to New Zealand for me.

So, somewhere in the South Island of New Zealand, perhaps along a rural road, sits a lonely, red brick. I should have put two bricks in there. Maybe next time.

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