Lightening The Load?

Thursday, March 1, 2001

(NAPSA)-—Oceupational therapists are alarmed that heavy school backpacks are putting the nation’s students at risk, so they have teamed up with a Jeading retailer to promote safer backpack use. Heavy school backpacks can cause a variety of problems and injuries in children. The American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) and L.L. Bean Inc. recently launched a campaign offering tips for selecting, loading, and wearing schoo! backpacks. Information is avail- able on the Web at www.acta.org and www.libean.com. “Every year, we're seeing more children with stooped shoulders, sore necks and aching backs from carrying school backpacks, and we can’t afford te put our children at risk for a lifetime of chronic health problems,” says Joseph C. Tsaacs, AOTA executive director. More than one-fourth of AOTA’s 45,006 raembers work with chi- dren in schools and communities. AOTA says students shouldcarry no more than 15 percent of their body weight in a school backpack. This means a child who weighs 100 pounds should not carry a backpack weighingover 15 pounds,

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