School Bags, Back Pain and the School Run

Term is a few weeks in now, uniforms have settled, and the school run has become routine again. It’s also around this point in September that Broadwater Osteopathic Practice starts seeing a familiar pattern walk through the door – and it’s not just children with sore backs and shoulders. It’s their parents.

We see plenty of what you might loosely call “bag-related pain,” and it shows up on both sides of the school gate. Kids carrying overloaded rucksacks all day is part of the picture. But so is the parent doing the school run twice a day carrying their own bag, their child’s forgotten PE kit, a lunch box, and often a younger sibling on one hip while unlocking the car with the other hand. That’s a repetitive lifting-and-carrying strain, and it builds up over weeks – which is exactly why it tends to surface now, not on the first day of term.

Whether it’s your child’s rucksack or your own arms doing the carrying, here’s how to reduce the load on your back this term

For parents: the school-run habits worth breaking​

• Swap sides, don’t stick to one. Carrying everything on the same shoulder or hip every single day, twice a day, adds up. Alternate sides, or use a cross-body bag rather than repeatedly loading the same shoulder.
• Get close before you lift. Keep children, car seats and other loads close to your body, avoid twisting as you lift, and use your legs rather than reaching and hauling from the waist.
• Don’t be the family pack-mule. It’s tempting to carry your child’s forgotten kit, coat and water bottle rather than have them do it – but doing that twice a day, every day, is something we regularly see contributing to ongoing strain by half-term.

For kids: how to pack and wear a school bag properly

1. Ask “do we actually need all this today?” It’s the first question we ask patients in clinic – and when we offer to carry someone’s bag through to the treatment room, we’re often amazed at the weight, and at how much of it wasn’t needed that day.
2. Pack heavy items low and close to the back. This keeps the load near the body’s centre of gravity. Just make sure nothing hard is poking into their back. Lighter items can go higher up.
3. Choose a bag that actually fits. There’s no bag that suits every child – the right rucksack should be sized to their frame, not oversized “to grow into.”
4. Get the fit snug, not saggy. The top of the bag should sit level with the top of the back, not sagging down around the hips.
5. Use both straps. One strap slung over a shoulder looks cooler, but it throws the load unevenly across the spine – something we regularly see contributing to shoulder and back pain after the summer holidays. Both straps, adjusted properly, every day.