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Indian Pediatr 2020;57:910-913 |
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Weight of Schoolbags
Among Indian Schoolchildren in Pune and Hyderabad
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Rajneesh K Joshi,1
Saurabh Mahajan,1 A
Yashowanth Rao,2 Likith
Polisetty1 and
Madhuri
Kanitkar3
From Departments of 1Community Medicine, and
3Pediatric Nephrology, Armed Forces Medical College, Pune; and
2Department of Pediatrics, Kameneni Academy
of Medical Sciences and Research Centre, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh,
India.
Correspondence to: Dr Rajneesh K Joshi, Department of Community
Medicine, Armed Forces Medical College, Pune, India.
Received: April 15, 2019;
Initial review: September 19, 2019;
Accepted: July 06, 2020.
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Objective: This study was done to determine proportion of children
carrying heavy school bags and to compare new guidelines issued by
Government of India on school bag weight limit, based on class of the
child with previous guidelines based on child’s weight. Methods:
A cross-sectional study was done among students of schools from two
cities of India – Pune and Hyderabad. Weight of school bag of 1321
children was measured and classified as ‘heavy’ or ‘normal’ based on
existing as well as new guidelines. Agreement between two guidelines was
also calculated. Results: In our study, 722 (77.2%) out of 935
students from class 1-10 were found to be carrying ‘heavy’ school bags.
Kappa coefficient for agreement between two guidelines was 0.55
(0.47,0.60) indicating moderately strong agreement. Conclusions:
Large proportion of school children are carrying school bags with weight
beyond permissible limits. There is a need for all stake holders to take
steps to reduce weight of school bags.
Keywords: Bags, Child, Education, India, School.
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I
n present times, school children have to
carry heavy schoolbags due to number of books, notebooks and
variety of other materials they are required to bring in their
school. Heavy school bags can lead to number of musculoskeletal
problems like backache, shoulder pain, pain in hand and wrist,
and spinal deformities among children [1-6]. Heavy school bags
have also been found to be associated with poor educational
outcomes and absenteeism. There are laid down guidelines that
school bag should not be more than 10% of child’s weight [2,7,8]
and there shall not be any school bag for a child studying in
nursery and kindergarten classes [9]. However, various studies
carried out in India as well as in other countries have brought
out that school children are carrying school bags with weight
beyond permissible limits [1-6,10-12]. Recently, Ministry of
Human Resource Development, Government of India issued new
guide-lines for school bag weight [13]. According to these
guidelines, maximum permissible weight of school bags has been
specified according to the class in which a child is studying.
We carried out this study on school bag weights of school
children in India to estimate proportion of children carrying
schoolbags heavier than recommended weight as per previous as
well as newer guidelines. We also investigated level of
agreement between these two guidelines in our study.
METHODS
This cross-sectional study was done in
selected schools in Pune and Hyderabad city of India. School
children studying in all grades of selected schools i.e.
from Nursery to 10th standard were included in this study.
Minimum sample size required to estimate proportion of school
children carrying heavy school bags in our study, assuming that
proportion to be 76% [10], with 95% confidence level and 2.5%
error of margin was 1121. Assuming non-response rate of 15%, we
planned to include 1325 students in this study. Simple random
samp-ling was used to select the students for this study.
Administrative permissions were taken from
res-pective school authorities to carry out this study.
Institutional Ethics Committee approval was also obtained.
Parents’ consent and children assent was taken for participation
in this study. Students particulars including date of birth were
obtained from school records. A digital weighing machine was
used to measure weight of students with bag and without bag.
Difference in these two weights was used to calculate weight of
school bag. Shoes of students were removed before measuring
weight. We used two criteria to classify school bag as ‘heavy’:
(i) Criterion 1 – According to child’s weight - If school
bag weight was more than 10% of child’s weight [9]; and (ii)
Criterion 2- According to class - If school bag weight was more
than 1.5 kg for class 1 & 2, more than 3 kg for class 3-5, more
than 4 kg for class 6-7, more than 4.5 kg for class 8-9, and
more than 5 kg for class 10th
[13].
Statistical analysis: Student t test was
used to compare continuous variables between two groups. Kappa
co-efficient was used to measure agreement between two
guidelines regarding overweight of school bags. R software ver
3.2.0 was used for data analysis.
RESULTS
A total of 1321 students (708 male)
participated in this study, mean (SD) schoolbag weight was 3.81
(2.45) Kg. Distribution of students as per different classes is
shown in Table I. Class 8 students had highest
mean school bag weight [8.05 (2.87) kg]. However, class 6
students were found to be carrying highest school bag weight in
terms of their body weight [21.65 (8.93)%]. Mean school bag
weight as per different classes is shown in Table I
and Figs. 1 and 2. There was no
significant difference in mean (SD) school bag weight of boys
and girls in our study [3.92 (2.67) kg vs 3.68 (2.17) kg,
P=0.07], or mean (SD) school bag weight as percentage of
body weight [13.9 (6.55) vs 13.9 (5.95); P=0.9].
Table I Weight of Schoolbag in the Enrolled Children (N=1321)
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Grade |
Number of |
Schoolbag |
Schoolbag weight
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children |
weight (kg) |
as body weight |
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percentage (%)
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Nursery |
101 |
1.08 (0.40) |
7.6 (2.9) |
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LKG |
145 |
1.94 (0.58) |
11.9 (3.92) |
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UKG |
140 |
2.18 (0.54) |
12.3 (3.78) |
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1 |
82 |
3.15 (0.91) |
14.9 (5.37)
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2 |
145 |
3.33 (1.12) |
14.9 (5.55) |
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3 |
147 |
3.40 (1.21) |
14.4 (6.11) |
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4 |
132 |
3.65 (1.26) |
13.8 (5.76) |
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5 |
186 |
4.15 (1.44) |
13.8 (6.12) |
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6 |
38 |
6.89 (2.53) |
21.6 (8.93) |
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7 |
41 |
7.78 (2.86) |
20.4 (9.14) |
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8 |
53 |
8.05 (2.87) |
18.9 (7.86) |
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9 |
50 |
7.46 (2.38) |
16.9 (6.02) |
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10 |
61 |
7.56 (2.15) |
12.0 (4.0) |
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LKG: Lower kindergarten; UKG: Upper kindergarten; values
in mean (SD). |
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Fig. 1 Boxplot showing weight
of school bag (in kgs) for different grades.
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Fig. 2 Boxplot showing weight
of school bag (as percentage of body weight) in students
of different grades.
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According to guidelines, children studying in
nursery and kindergarten should not be carrying any schoolbag.
However, in our study we found that children studying in these
pre-primary classes were also carrying school bags with weights
as mentioned in Table I. Hence, we assumed that
100% of these pre-primary school children were carrying ‘heavy’
school bags. We excluded these children from further analysis.
We used two criteria to classify school bag
weight as ‘high’ for school children studying in grades 1-10. We
found that more than 77% school children were carrying school
bag with more than recommended weight. Distribution of these
students as per their grade is shown in Table II.
Table II Distribution of Children Carrying Heavy School Bags in Pune and Hyderabad (N=935)
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Grade |
No. |
Number (%) carrying heavy school
bags* |
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M |
F |
Total |
Criterion I
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Criterion II |
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n=724 |
n=722 |
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1 |
35 |
47 |
82 |
67 (81.7) |
79 (96.3) |
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2 |
80 |
65 |
145 |
111 (76.6) |
138 (95.2) |
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3 |
79 |
68 |
147 |
108 (73.5) |
78 (53.1) |
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4 |
77 |
55 |
132 |
102 (77.3) |
82 (62.1) |
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5 |
103 |
83 |
186 |
129 (69.4) |
131 (70.4) |
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6 |
22 |
16 |
38 |
35 (92.1) |
31 (81.6) |
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7 |
21 |
20 |
41 |
38 (92.7) |
36 (87.8) |
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8 |
26 |
27 |
53 |
49 (92.5) |
50 (94.3) |
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9 |
28 |
22 |
50 |
46 (92.0) |
47 (94.0) |
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10 |
29 |
32 |
61 |
39 (63.9) |
50 (82.0) |
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*Criterion I -Bag weight >10% of Bodyweight [9] and
Criterion II – Bag weight more than guidelines issued by
Government of India [13]. |
Although Criterion 1 and Criterion 2
classified almost equal number of school bags (724 and 722,
respectively) as ‘heavy’; only 647 bags were classified as heavy
by both criteria (Table III). Overall, agreement
in these two criteria for classification of schoolbag weight as
heavy or otherwise was 83.7% [Kappa co-efficient (95% CI): 0.55
(0.47, 0.60)] indicating moderately strong agreement in these
two guidelines.
Table III Agreement Between the Two Criteria for Classifying Schoolbag Weight as ‘Heavy’ or ‘Normal’
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Criterion 1 |
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Heavy
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Normal
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(n=724) |
(n=211) |
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Criterion 2 |
Heavy (n=722) |
647 |
75 |
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Normal (n=213) |
77
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136 |
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Criterion I -Bag weight >10% of Bodyweight [9] and
Criterion 2 – Bag weight more than guidelines issued by
Government of India [13]. |
DISCUSSION
In this study, we observed that weight of
school bags was much higher than recommended weight-limit.
Though pre-primary students should not carry schoolbags, in our
study all pre-primary students were carrying school bags with
books and note-books. We found that very high proportion of
students in grades 1-10 were carrying heavy school bags, which
should be a cause for concern. We also observed that problem of
heavy weight of school bags increased from class 6 onwards.
Similar proportion of children were classified as carrying heavy
school bags by both the guidelines for school bag weights and
there was moderately strong agreement between these two
guidelines.
This is the first study to evaluate new
guidelines issued by Government of India regarding schoolbag
weight with previous guidelines and we included students from
all classes of school in our study. However, major limitation of
this study is that we have included selected schools from two
cities only; hence, generali-zability of study findings is
limited.
Our findings are similar to study by Oka,
et al. [10] in two urban areas which also found 76% of
schoolchildren carrying heavy bags, though another study [12] in
rural Maharashtra found less than 50% of students with heavy
school bags. These variations indicate that there may be
difference in number of books and notebooks being carried by
students in urban and rural area schools. Few studies [5,6] had
reported that boys carry heavier school bags as compared to
girls; however, we did not find any significant difference in
weight of school bags of boys and girls. Our finding of
significant increase in school bag weight in higher classes of
school is similar to previous studies [3,11].
Our findings highlight the need to implement
Govern-ment guidelines regarding school bag weight in true
spirit. Education department can make curriculum more practical
problems oriented and less theory intensive, which will help in
reducing the burden of books children have to carry. Schools can
also make timetable for classes in such a way that students need
to bring books related to few subjects only on a given day.
Also, books and note books which students may not require at
home, can be kept in school itself. Use of papers and files
instead of notebooks can also help in reducing weight of school
bags. Judicious use of computers and tablets in schools can also
reduce the burden of books for students. Parents also need to
ensure that their child carried minimum required books and
notebooks to school, as many times children tend to take all
books and notebooks to school.
Contributors: RKJ: study design, data
collection and analysis, preparation of manuscript; SM: Data
collection, analysis and manuscript preparation; AYR:
study conceptualization, data collection and critical revision
of manuscript; LP: study design, data collection and manuscript
preparation; MK: Study concep-tualization and design, data
collection, interpretation and critical revision of manuscript.
All authors approved the final version of manuscript and agree
to be accountable for authenticity and integrity of the work.
Funding: None; Competing interest:
None stated.
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What This Study Adds?
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New guidelines regarding
schoolbag weight based on class of child have moderately
strong agreement with previous guidelines based on
child’s weight.
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