In the “back-to-school” shopping ritual, one of the most important, and expensive, family purchases is a new backpack. Does it seem to you too that every year the load our kids schlep between school and home on their backs becomes heavier and heavier?

In fact, there is real concern among medical professionals about the long-term effects of this “weightiness” on the nerves, bones and muscles of young children. There are long-term studies underway to follow up the muscular-skeletal effects that may result from years of hauling around pounds and pounds of books, sports gear, computers, and all the other portable “necessities” our kids carry on their back ten months out of the year. In later life, the back-packer may develop the newly named syndrome of “backpackilepsy.”

Being bent over by the bu…