For everything good about each school reopening, there remains a constant ‘pain’ on students’ back.
Poet Chemmanam Chacko captured that pain succinctly as he compared overloaded backpacks with gunny sacks of salt in his verse Shisupeedanam .
The poem seems to have assumed greater significance as parents and students get ready to welcome the new academic year beginning from June 2. Overweight backpacks remain a serious issue as it puts students at the risk of back pain and related disorders.
“The textbooks that children carry often remind me of big cricket courts. I feel the judiciary should act against the education system that forces students to carry overloaded backpacks to school,” Mr. Chemmanam Chacko told The Hindu on Thursday.
Paediatricians have also sounded the warning bell against heavy school bags. Senior paediatrician Dr. S. Sachidananda Kamath, who was member of a panel appointed by the State Human Rights Commission on overweight school bags, warned that students should not carry a backpack that is more than 10 per cent of their bodyweight.
According to experts, a student weighing 25 kilogram should not carry a school bag that weighs more than 2.5 kg. Students often carry backpacks as heavy as 20 per cent to 25 per cent of their bodyweight.
Dr. Kamath said carrying heavy school bags would have its impact on neck, shoulders, upper back and lower back. It could also make children susceptible to spinal injuries. Many schools were yet to implement various suggestions to check the increasing weight of school bags, he said.
As per the recommendations mooted by experts, textbooks could be split up in such a way that the portions in the syllabus for each term are separate for Classes I to VII. The portions of each subject for a term could be combined so that a child need carry only one textbook for the entire term. Also, only notebooks of 80-100 pages should be used.
For High School students also, the textbooks could be split up term-wise and instead of notebooks A4 size papers could be used. These should then be filed systematically at home.
Dr. Kamath said that weight of school bags could be reduced if the school provided pure drinking water to the students. Students need not carry water bottles in such a scenario, he said.
