Colleen Kelly Official Website

Several years ago I was asked by a large backpack association to speak at one of their events on how to pack children’s backpacks.

It was one of the few times I said ‘no’ to a lecture. Frankly, I don’t believe children should be carrying backpacks at all.

At the time the only solution I could think of was a trolley. You don’t see children at an airport carrying a backpack – they pull a trolley instead. But of course now we have kindle, the internet, electronic submissions of essays. Why on earth are they carrying a single book?

Looking into it further at the time, I did a small study (n=27) and found that the children in Melbourne that I studied, all from Grade 9 at the local Bacchus Marsh School, were carrying more weight than Heathrow Baggage Handlers!

But, as the Universe would have it – while I was doing the study, the school had a group of children visiting from Japan.  What did they arrive with….trolleys!

Children should not be carrying heavy back-packs.  Simply a lawsuit waiting to happen – that can so easily be avoided.  Extra lockers, using kindle, internet and electronic submissions, and if the school is that old-fashioned they are unable or unwilling to go paperless…use trolleys!

Click here to go to the Time Health Article