LCC students offer advice on backpack safety
Standing before a large group of students at Memorial Middle School, Christy Inocencio asked them if she “looked cool” as she stood slanted to one side with a backpack on her shoulder.
Suddenly the backpack slides off Inocencio’s shoulder, and as she keeps her body slanted sideways, she asks the crowd, “Do I still look cool?”
Inocencio, a student in the Occupational Therapy Assistant program at Laredo Community College, was illustrating to the seventh-grade students one of the serious health problems that can arise from wearing backpacks that are too heavy or worn improperly.
Inocencio was joined by classmate Jose Luis Sifuentes and instructor Terri Gonzalez to offer a short presentation on school backpacks and health this week at the middle school.
In January, shortly after students returned to school from the winter holidays, school nurse Yolanda Cena noticed that some students were reporting to her office complaining of back pain.
Cena remembered reading a newspaper article last fall about the college students’ efforts to raise awareness about the national observance of School Backpack Awareness Day.
Every year in September, OTA students in the two-year associate’s degree program at LCC offer presentations in classrooms across town.
Cena invited the college students to offer their presentation to more than 400 sixth- and seventh-graders at the middle school.
During their talk to the students, Sifuentes and Inocencio offered valuable advice about this health issue.
They emphasized the importance of keeping the weight on a backpack relative to just 15 percent of a person’s body weight.
It also was recommended that the heaviest items be loaded closest to the user’s back and that shoulder and waist straps be adjusted properly to distribute the burden more evenly along a person’s back.
They invited several students with backpacks to the stage to highlight their discussion.
Sifuentes also shed light on a national study that estimates an astonishing figure of more than 7,000 emergency room visits in one year resulting from injuries related to backpacks and book bags—half of those occurring among elementary and middle-school students.
“If you overload your backpack or wear it improperly, you can experience neck, shoulder and back pain today or later in your life. It can also affect your posture,” Sifuentes stressed.
Toward the conclusion of their presentation, the college students offered some exercise tips their younger counterparts can follow to relieve stress on their backs, shoulders and necks after wearing a backpack.
Sifuentes was pleased to see some students adjusting their backpacks and following their advice as they left the school gym.
“I’m glad students are taking our advice,” Sifuentes said. “They need to be aware of the consequences that can occur from carrying a heavy backpack or wearing it improperly.”
Laredo Community College student Jose Luis Sifuentes is flanked by a seventh-grade student from Memorial Middle School and classmate Christy Inocencio as they offer a visual demonstration on the proper wear of backpacks during a class presentation in the school gym Tuesday.
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