School bags 'causing back pain'

Do backpacks damage backs? Rucksacks loaded with school books have been linked to higher levels of back pain in a study of Spanish school children.

The findings, reported in Archives of Disease in Childhood, said many pupils had "excessively loaded" backpacks.

This was linked to higher levels of back pain in the 1,403 school children taking part in the study.

The research took place at Hospital da Costa in Burela and University Hospital Son Dureta in Palma.

The report's authors said school children should not carry anything which weighs more than 10% of their body weight.

Measurements were taken from pupils aged 12-17 from 11 schools in Northern Spain. It showed that nearly two thirds of pupils had backpacks which broke the 10% rule.

The weight of the bags was then analysed for back pain, measured as at least 15 days in a year with back pain.

The pupils were split into four groups based on the weight of their bags. Pupils in the group with the heaviest bags were 50% more likely to have reported back pain than in the group with the lightest bags.

The report said back pain was a bigger problem in school girls and that the risk increased with age.

The authors concluded: "The results obtained have strong implications.

"Many children transport excessively loaded backpacks, an excess which would not be allowed for workers in employment."

Sean McDougal, from the charity Backcare, said: "The average child in the UK is carrying 15-20% of their body weight to school and back.

"Children are also in the habit of carrying bags over just one shoulder."

He advises taking to school only what is needed on any given day and ensuring that backpacks are worn over both shoulders.

Down with Healthy School Lunches, Says House GOP

By Tom Laskawy

Having already moved to gut USDA programs promoting agricultural conservation and renewable energy and strip the USDA of its authority to enact the first meaningful reform of the irredeemably monopolistic livestock industry, House Republicans have now turned their attention to that other great threat to American freedom: USDA nutrition guidelines.

According to the Associated Press, Republican appropriators in the House of Representatives (the lawmakers who control the government's purse) are on the verge of defunding significant parts of school-lunch reform and elements of Michelle Obama's Let's Move! program, as well as the recently announced voluntary Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines that would restrict junk-food advertising aimed at young children.

As a spokesperson for House Appropriations Committee Chair Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) put it, the new FTC rule in particular is "classic nanny-state overreach":

 "Our concern is those voluntary guidelines are back-door regulation," he said, deploring the fact that kids can watch shows that depict sex and drugs on MTV, but "you cannot see an advertisement for Tony the Tiger during the commercial break."

Ah, the House GOP -- making the world safe for Tony the Tiger. But the fury of the Cuddly Corporate Marketing Character Lobby pales in comparison to that of the Potato Lobby. Big Spud is furious -- furious, I tell you -- that the new USDA guidelines for school lunches would restrict starchy vegetables such as the potato to a one-cup-a-week appearance on the plates of schoolchildren nationwide. In place of the mighty potato would come additional servings of whole grains, orange and green veggies, and low-fat milk. It's enough to drive you around the bend!

Never mind that the potato is by far the most-consumed vegetable in America and that restricting it at school would still allow parents to stuff their children with French-fried, mashed, and chipped potatoes outside of school hours. Attention must be paid! So the Potato Lobby and representatives from potato-growing regions are fighting back hard.

And how about the new calorie-labeling requirement that was included in health-reform legislation? The House GOP is going after that, too.

Fifth 'end primary school obese'

More than 1m children took part in the measuring scheme Continue reading the main storyRelated storiesChild obesity 'is levelling off'GPs 'struggle with child obesity'Obesity 'spreads among the young' Nearly one in five children in England leave primary school obese, figures show.

The data, from the school measuring programme, also showed one in 10 pupils start school obese.

The figures show small rises from previous years although as the scheme is voluntary it is hard to draw firm conclusions.

Predictions from a separate report last year suggested childhood obesity was levelling off.

In total, 18.7% of year six pupils were obese, the report released by the NHS Information Centre showed. The figure rises to 33.4% when overweight children are taken into account.

For the reception year, the figures are 9.8% and 23.1% respectively.

Rethink

All these measures show slight increases from 2008-9, although the NHS Information Centre which produced the report said they were not statistically significant.

This is mainly because parents can refuse to let their children take part in the programme - and one in 10 do.

Nonetheless, more than 1m children took part, making it the largest child weight survey of its kind.

Tim Straughan, chief executive of the NHS Information Centre, said: "These statistics suggest that more needs to be done at a younger age to combat obesity within primary education and positively encourage healthy eating and participation in physical activity to reduce future health implications for these children."

Tam Fry, from the National Obesity Forum, said the figures were shaming.

"The fact that obesity doubles during the primary school years from reception year shows that the government must rethink its recent proposals on school dinners and physical activity."

Dr Helen Walters, obesity spokesperson for the UK Faculty of Public Health, said she still believed the rise in obesity was beginning to tail off.

Bue she added: "The situation will take decades to sort out and as it stands, the picture remains bleak."

Why We Shouldn't Cut Food Stamps to Pay for School Lunch

In the dying days of this Congress, food activists face an awful choice: Should we support the increased funding of children's school lunches, even if it means taking money from a family's food stamps? That is what's on the table in a version of the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Bill passed by the Senate, in which an improved school meal program will be paid for by cutting back $2 billion in funding for food stamps in 2013.

No one disputes that poor children need to be better fed, but government food stamp entitlements are the last tatters of a safety net for many millions of people. Evidence? Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that 50.2 million Americans were food insecure in 2009, a mere 1 million more than the year before. Although that's still one in six people, the figure was a victory. Given the soaring rates of poverty and unemployment in 2009, there could have been considerably more food insecure people.

When the recession started, over 10 million more people were added to the ranks of the food insecure: The number jumped from 37 million in 2007 to 49 million in 2008. One of the reasons America didn't see another 10 million food insecure people in 2009 was that the stimulus package, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, boosted the amount of money that poor households received in food stamps.

School Food Wars

By Ruth Conniff
The Progressive

My kids' school is awash in fresh fruits and vegetables this year.

As one of a handful of schools in our community that received the federal Fresh Fruits and Vegetables grant--available through the USDA for largely low-income schools--we are spending Sunday mornings buying produce at the local farmers' market, a few blocks from our school. Monday nights a group of parents gets together at a church across the street from the school building and washes and chops the produce, then loads it in the school fridge so the fourth and fifth graders can pass it out three mornings a week.

As labor-intensive as this whole process is, it is intensely rewarding. Watching the kids gobble up watermelon on the playground, or try cherry tomatoes for the first time in class, and hearing the comments about snack: "Cool! Green beans!" is a big lift.

It is especially gratifying since so many of the kids who are getting this snack are not familiar with fruits and vegetables. Many have never seen a fresh tomato before, let alone some of the more exotic veggies we are trying this year, like jicama and kohlrabi.

Certainly they are not getting that sort of thing at lunch in school.

For years, parents in our school district have been complaining about the deep fried French toast sticks and cocoa puffs in the breakfast program and the hot dogs and fries and cheese sauce at lunch.