Safe backpack weight limit for secondary school students in Ibadan, Southwestern Nigeria

Abstract

The aim of the study was to determine the safe limit of backpack weight that students in secondary schools should carry.This study considered a sample of 324 secondary school students (both boys and girls) that were randomly selected from both private and public secondary schools located in the city of Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State. A model was developed using strain energy principle of the spine in terms of chest width, chest depth, Young Modulus of Elasticity of articular cartilage, maximum permissible spinal shrinkage, length of spine and leg length of the students. The 5th, 50th, and 95th percentiles of the data obtained were computed using a SPSS 16.0 statistical package.The safe weight of backpack to be carried by male and female secondary students was 2.87kg (5.18% of body weight) and 2.53kg (4.91% of body weight) respectively.The study confirmed that the model may be used to determine the safe weight of backpack that should be carried out by the students.