Students are forced to carry unnaturally heavy bags to and from school these days for a number of reasons. Doctors are seeing this result in a number of health problems such as strained backs and necks in growing children. This is particularly true for students that are in middle schools and high schools and is not unusual to see teenagers carrying around a bag that is 30 pounds or more on their backs all day long in school. This will discuss why this is happening and what you can do to alleviate the problem like using a folding cart or wheeled cart backpack or working with the schools to change the carrying of heavy text books.

One of the reasons students are having to carry around all of their books and notebooks these days is that newer school buildings are not providing lockers for their students. This is the situation in the Douglas County school district south of Denver where the schools are all fairly new. They did not put in lockers in these new buildings to eliminate or cut down on places where students could hide unsafe items such as drugs or weapons on school property. This then, results in the kids having to carry their entire days worth of books as well as their coats with them for more than 7 hours.

Some schools do have lockers for their students but the amount of time in between classes is often too short to be able to go to your locker and make it to your class in time to make good use of the locker. Some schools, such as the Mariemont school district outside of Cincinnati now buy an extra set of text books for each student to keep at home and the other books are in the classroom. This eliminates the need to carry those text books to and from school for the kids, helping to lower the weight in their bags.

One solution to get rid of the heavy text books completely would be to switch to online books and content which many teachers across the country are already doing. Not only does this lower the need to carry the heavy books around every day but it can also save the school districts money in having to buy them for the students. Many school districts use them as a supplement to the books but haven’t completely switched to the electronic teaching tools completely.

If there is no other option to reduce the amount of books that your teenager has to carry all day long in school, then maybe the method that they transport their items should change. Many companies that manufacture book bags or back packs now are creating ones that have wheels for kids to pull rather than put on their backs. This is highly recommended by pediatricians if the bags weigh more than 20 pounds. These doctors are contributing the increase in back problems as well as a higher occurrence of scoliosis to these heavy bags that students are having to carry all day long , five days a week.