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By Victoria Hannon, Okeechobee News

Backpacks can be purchased featuring a wide array of designs -- from cartoon characters to sports logos -- which is often a deciding factor on which bag a person buys for school. However, there are other factors that should be taken into consideration.

How wide are the shoulder straps? Does it disperse weight evenly? Does the bag have a waist belt to disperse weight to the hips? These are all questions that should be asked before purchase.

Children across the spectrum have come to rely on backpacks as a means of transporting all of their needs from one location to another. Nowhere is this more evident than in the school system.

However, with the ever growing amount of knowledge that they are expected to take in, there is also an increase in the weight of their bags. Whether it is extra books, extra supplies or just useless clutter, the amount that is placed on the shoulders of young people is increasing.

This increase in weight can be correlated to an increase in children seeing chiropractors. A much overlooked problem in today’s school system is the increasing problem of back pain on the part of students. This pain can range from a number of sources, but the main source is expected to be improper use of book bags. It is estimated by the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS) that more than 21,000 backpack-related injuries occur a year.

According to the AAOS, backpacks that are too heavy or are worn incorrectly may injure a child’s muscles and joints -- leading to back, neck and shoulder pain.

To alleviate this problem the AAOS recommends that parents purchase book bags that have multiple pockets, wide shoulder straps and extra padding to keep things in the bag from poking the child. They also recommend that proper lift procedures are used to raise the bag; such as lifting with the knees.

The American Chiropractic Association recommends that children do not carry more than 10 percent of their body weight in their book bags. More weight will cause the student to lean forward in an attempt to support the weight on their backs, which can cause misalignment of the spine. For the same reason, the bag should not be allowed to hang more than 4 inches from the weight of its contents.

Each hardcover textbook that a child is assigned, generally one per class, weighs an average of 3 pounds at the high school level. Books weigh less at lower levels of education.

At North Elementary students are only assigned three books -- one in reading, math and science -- and are not asked to carry them home everyday. These books generally weigh a pound or less.

For most students their bags don’t contain all of the books at once, they have lockers or desks in which they leave their books. But, it can cause a problem on weekends or nights when they take the books home to do homework.

Okeechobee schools do not have any special requirements for backpacks, but do not allow wheeled book bags on the grounds that they are bulky and present a tripping hazard.