健康生活:書包太重,孩子身體遭殃大綱

My 11-year-old grandsons, Stefan and Tomas, weigh about 80 pounds each. On the 20-minute walk to their middle school and the uphill walk home, they carry backpacks that weigh about 12 pounds each, or 15 percent of their body weight.

我的兩個孫子斯蒂芬(Stefan)和托馬斯(Tomas)現年11歲，體重都是80來磅（合36公斤）。他們每天要步行去初中上學，回家時還得走一段上坡路，在這段20分鐘的路程裏，他倆要各自揹着12磅（合5.4公斤）的書包，也就是說，書包的重量達到他們體重的15%。

When extra books or clothing, a musical instrument or other equipment are added, the weight they carry can reach 20 pounds. But whatever the figure, those packs are simply too heavy for their still-forming bones and muscles.

如果加上額外的書本、衣服、一件樂器或別的用品，他們要背的書包很可能達到20磅重（合9公斤）。但不管究竟有多重，他們的書包對於仍在發育中的骨骼和肌肉來說，未免過於沉重了。

Heavy backpacks don't just sap children of energy that might be better used doing schoolwork or playing sports. Lugging them can also lead to chronic back pain, accidents and possibly lifelong orthopedic damage.

沉重的書包不僅會消耗孩子們本可以用來更好地做功課或參加體育活動的精力。負擔過重，可會導致慢性背痛、發生意外，甚至有可能帶來終生的骨骼傷害。

Among the risks described by Dr. Pierre D'Hemecourt, a sports medicine specialist at Children's Hospital Boston, are stress fractures in the back, inflammation of growth cartilage, back and neck strain, and nerve damage in the neck and shoulders.

波士頓兒童醫院(Children's Hospital Boston)的運動醫學專家皮埃爾·戴米庫(Pierre D'Hemecourt)描述了一系列危害，包括背部應力性骨折、生長板軟骨發炎、後背和頸部壓力、以及背部和肩膀的神經損害。

The federal Consumer Product Safety Commission calculated that carrying a 12-pound backpack to and from school and lifting it 10 times a day for an entire school year puts a cumulative load on youngsters' bodies of 21,600 pounds — the equivalent of six mid-sized cars.

聯邦消費者產品安全委員會(Consumer Product Safety Commission )計算得出：假設一個學生每天揹着12磅的書包往返，每天擡起書包的次數以10次計，一學年下來，這個孩子的身體總共要承擔21600磅（約合9800公斤）的負擔——相當於6臺中型小汽車。

The issue has been raised repeatedly in countries all over the world for more than a decade. In December 1999, doctors in Milan reported in The Lancet that 34.8 percent of Italian schoolchildren carried more than 30 percent of their body weight at least once a week, "exceeding limits proposed for adults."

在過去這十幾年來，世界各國都在反覆探討這個問題。1999年12月，米蘭的醫生們在《柳葉刀》(The Lancet)上發表報告稱，每週至少有一次，34.8%的意大利學童要揹負超過自身體重30%的書包，“這超出了向成年人推薦的負重上限。”

The load carried by these sixth-graders was equivalent to a 176-pound man hauling around a 39-pound backpack each day.

而這些六年級學生所扛的書包重量，相當於一個176磅（合80公斤）的男性每天扛着39磅（合17.8公斤）的揹包四處走。

But even in this digital era, when at least some schoolwork can be done online, there has been no apparent decrease in the burdens we ask the younger generation to tote around all day.

可是就算身處這個數字時代，當至少部分作業可以在線完成時，我們讓孩子們每天揹負的書包重量卻並沒有顯著的減輕。

Pack Animals

小小蝸牛揹着殼

In the newest study, published in March in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, researchers in Spain assessed the backpacks and back health of 1,403 pupils ages 12 to 17. More than 60 percent were carrying packs weighing more than 10 percent of their body weight, and nearly one in five had schoolbags that weighed more than 15 percent of their own weight.

在3月發表在《兒童疾病檔案》(Archives of Disease in Childhood)最新研究中，西班牙的研究人員評估了1403名12-17歲兒童的書包重量和背部健康。超過60%的學生所背的書包重量超過其體重的10%，近五分之一書包重量超過體重的15%。

Not surprisingly, one in four students said they had suffered back pain for more than 15 days during the previous year; scoliosis — curvature of the spine — accounted for 70 percent of those with pain. The remaining 30 percent had either low back pain or contractures — continuous, involuntary muscle contractions. Girls faced a greater risk of back pain than boys, and their risk increased with age (and, presumably, years of lugging around their heavy packs).

這個結果也不出所料：在以上學生中，每四人中就有一人說，自己在前一年感到背痛的天數超過了15天；脊椎側彎——脊椎出現彎曲）——在出現背痛孩子中的比例達70%。剩下的這30%學生，要麼有腰痛，要麼有攣縮——肌肉持續的、非隨意的緊縮。比起男孩，女孩出現背痛的風險更大，而且風險隨年紀增長而上升（可以推想，這跟年復一年揹着重重的書包有關）。

Pain often results when the weight of the pack pulls children backward, prompting them to bend forward or to arch their backs to keep the pack centered. This position can compress the spine, pressing the vertebrae on the discs between them.

沉重的書包會壓得孩子往後仰，爲了保持後背的中立位置，他們得往前弓背或者貓起腰來，疼痛往往因此發生。這種姿勢可以擠壓脊柱，壓迫腰椎間盤。

If the child has to lean forward when walking with a loaded pack, it is too heavy. At the very least, it is a recipe for poor posture and chronically rounded shoulders. And if these forward-bending children must raise their heads to see where they are going, neck pain and pinched nerves can be the result.

如果孩子在揹着書包走路時身體前傾，就說明書包太重了。這樣至少會導致孩子姿勢不佳，長此以往會出現圓肩（即肩胛骨向前擠——譯註）。如果這些身體前傾的孩子還得擡起頭來看看自己走到哪裏去了，則會導致頸部疼痛和神經病變。

Children also accidentally whack schoolmates with heavy backpacks while walking in crowded hallways. Sometimes the pack falls from a shelf or desk, or trips someone while resting on the floor. A too-heavy pack can throw the wearer off-balance on a staircase.

在揹着重重的書包走過擁擠的走廊時，孩子們可能不小心掄到別的同學。有時書包會從架子或課桌上墜落，擱在地上時則會絆倒別人。揹着過重的書包，孩子甚至有可能在上下樓梯時失去平衡。

Reducing the Load

減輕負累

In the interest of sanity and safety, my son (the twins' father) purchased used instruments for them to keep at home so they would not have to lug a trombone or clarinet back and forth to school along with their other paraphernalia.

考慮到衛生和安全因素，我的兒子（也就是這對雙胞胎的父親）爲他們購買了二手樂器，供他們在家中使用，這樣孩子們就不會在帶着其他學習用品的同時，還得拖着長號或單簧管往返於學校和家了。

Then he conducted an inventory of their packs and sent it by e-mail to their teachers to find out just how many of the items had to be carried to and from school each day.

然後他對孩子們書包裏裝的東西列了份目錄，通過郵件發給老師們，好確認每天有哪些東西必須背到學校再揹回家。

One teacher responded with some helpful suggestions, including having the boys take a few minutes at the end of the school day to determine what they really needed to take home with them.

一位老師提供了一些有益的建議，包括兩個孩子每天放學時，先花幾分鐘考慮下，有哪些東西他們覺得非得帶回家不可。

"They don't have to bring everything home every night," Aimee Fournier, their English teacher, wrote. "But a lot of kids don't take much time at their lockers to sort out what they do need."

英語老師艾米·弗涅爾(Aimee Fournier)在信中寫道：“他們沒必要每晚把所有東西都揹回家，但很多孩子不會在儲物櫃前駐足停留，考慮自己的真實需要。”

Rather than lug around the entire load all day, most books can be left in the child's locker, if there is enough time between classes. Only those needed for the next class or two need be taken along.

大部分書並不需要整天背來背去，如果課間休息的時間夠用，可以把書放在孩子的儲物櫃裏，只帶下面一兩節課要用的教材即可。

In schools facing less of a financial pinch than New York City's, teachers might be able to provide duplicates of at least some of the often-used heavy textbooks to keep at home.

在那些經費不像紐約市這麼捉襟見肘的校區，老師們也許可以給學生提供至少部分備用書，好讓家裏也存一套常用的厚重教材。

Dr. Bryan Lane, an osteopath in Temple, Tex., urges parents to peek inside their children's backpacks and suggest items that could be left at home or at school. He studied 188 children in kindergarten through fifth grade and found that on average the children toted packs equaling 14 percent of their body weight. A third of the parents had never checked the contents of the packs, and 96 percent had never weighed them.

德克薩斯州坦普爾市的整骨醫師布萊恩·蘭(Bryan Lane)提醒家長們，他們應當瞭解孩子們書包中放了哪些物品，同時對孩子該把哪些留在家裏，哪些帶去學校提出建議。他研究了從幼兒園到小學五年級的188名兒童，發現平均來說，孩子們所背的書包重量達到其體重的14%。三分之一的家長從來沒有查看孩子的書包，96%的家長從未稱過重量。

Also helpful is selecting a well-designed backpack and adjusting it to sit properly on the child's back. Although for the last 15 years I have used a rolling backpack to go to and from work, I know that teens and preteens today consider them unfashionable. Plus, they can be a trip hazard in hallways and difficult to carry up and down stairs.

挑選設計上佳、可以調適到完全適合孩子背部的書包也有用。過去這15年來，我上下班一直使用的是一個拉桿包，不過我知道對於青春期和青春期前的孩子來說，這種包不那麼時髦。此外，它可能會在過道里絆倒人，也很難提起來上下樓梯。

Select a backpack that is no bigger than absolutely necessary — the more room in the pack, the more the child is likely to carry. The pack should have wide, padded, adjustable shoulder straps (narrow ones can cause nerve damage), a padded back, and compartments within so that the heaviest items can rest against the child's back.

選擇一個不超出所需大小的書包——揹包的空間越寬裕，孩子就越有可能往裏面裝更多東西。書包應該有寬大的肩帶、有襯墊並且可調（窄窄的肩帶可能會引起神經病變），書包背部應有軟墊，裏面也要有隔層，這樣最重的物品可以貼在孩子的後背上。

A waist strap would be ideal, but I doubt many children would use it. Adjust the shoulder straps so that the bottom of the pack when filled lands no lower than four inches below the waist.

如果書包有腰帶，這自然最好不過，但我懷疑有多少孩子願意繫腰帶。調整好腰帶，要確保在裝好物品後，書包底端距離腰部不低於4英寸。

Children should be cautioned never to carry the pack on one shoulder. Decades of carrying nearly everything heavy on my right shoulder has left me with significant scoliosis that I'm now trying to minimize with a yoga exercise.

人們應提醒孩子，千萬不要單肩背書包。幾十年來，我一直用右肩背重重的包，導致出現了嚴重的脊椎側彎，現在只好通過瑜伽練習儘量減輕症狀。

Digital Textbooks May Help Ease Backpack Burden

數字教材可能有助於爲書包減負

The issue of overloaded backpacks could well become moot if President Obama and his education gurus have their way. The president wants every student to be using e-textbooks by 2017.

如果奧巴馬和他的教育高參們能夠一路凱歌，過重的書包有可能將成爲過去式。總統希望在2017年前，所有學生都能使用數字教材。

In January, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Julius Genachowski, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, recommended that states redirect budgets for printed books to the purchase of iPads, Kindles and the like and the software needed to foster modern education.

1月份，教育部長阿恩·鄧肯(Arne Duncan)和聯邦通信委員會主度朱利斯·格納科斯其(Julius Genachowski)建議政府將原用於紙質教材的預算劃撥用於購買iPad、Kindle和其他類似電子產品，以及用於健全現代化教育的各類軟件。

Publishers and tablet makers will be urged to work together, and to lower costs, in order to supply the nation's 50 million schoolchildren with electronic products for educational use.

當局將敦促出版商和平板電腦廠商合作，同時降低產品費用，以向全美5000萬在校學生提供電教產品。

Although not everyone endorses the idea of moving from words printed on paper to those delivered electronically, there are certain undeniable advantages.

儘管對於將注意力從白紙黑字轉移到電子書上的想法，並非所有人都支持，但它確實擁有一些不可辯駁的優勢。

For one, updates to e-textbooks are relatively easy to make, which means schools with limited finances would not have to replace outdated texts every five or six years. Learning would be more efficient and interactive, and materials supplied by teachers could be tailored to better meet individual student needs.

其中一項是，更新電子書相對更易行，這就意味着經費有限的學校不必面對每隔五六年就要換過時教材的問題。學習將更有效，互動性更強，而且由老師挑選的教材將能更好地滿足學生的個體化需求。

In addressing a summit of industry and education officials in January, Mr. Genachowski said that $7 billion a year is now being spent on textbooks that often are out-of-date. He predicted that in five years, "we could be spending less as a society on textbooks and getting more for it."

在1月份一個面向產業界和教育官員的峯會上，格納科斯基先生說，現在每年要在教材上花費70億美元，而這些教材的內容往往已經落伍。他預言，在五年內，“作爲一個社會，我們在教材上花的錢將更少，而所得的回報將更多。”

He acknowledged the greater up-front costs of moving from paper to digital books and other materials but insisted that in the long run the switch would bring huge savings to the country's educational system.

他承認，將教材和其他教輔材料從紙質換成數字版本，先期投入會更高，但堅信長遠來看，這種轉變將爲美國的教育體系節省巨大開支。

The first challenge will probably be finding the money with which schools could buy devices like the iPad, which runs about $500 at retail. In school districts that cannot afford such purchases, strategies will be needed to help low-income students get their own.

首當其衝的挑戰是尋找資金，用於學校購買電子設備，像iPad這樣的設備零售價可達500美元左右。在一些買不起這類硬件的校區，還需要想辦法幫助低收入家庭學生購買自己的器材。

Then there is the issue of safekeeping (although if every child has one, the risk of theft is somewhat diminished).

其次是安全保管問題（不過如果孩子們人手一臺，失竊的危險將會減少些）。

Costs aside, the educational advantages are perhaps limitless on devices that allow students to do research, check their work and get feedback from teachers without leaving their classrooms or homes. Digital books can also provide interactive diagrams, audio and video that are not possible with traditional texts.

花費姑且不論，這類器材帶來的教育優勢將可能是無窮無盡的，學生們無需離開教室或走出家門，就可以進行研究、檢查功課並得到老師的反饋。電子教材同時還可以提供交互式圖表、音頻和視頻，這是傳統課本無法企及的。

Apple has already introduced three types of educational software intended to make the iPad a fixture in the classroom: an updated electronic bookstore called iBooks 2 that allows students to download more interactive textbooks; iBooks Author, a program for creating books; and iTunes U, an app that instructors can use to produce digital curricula and share course materials with students.

蘋果公司已經引入了三種教育軟件，好讓iPad適應課堂環境：一種是稱爲iBook 2的更新版在線書店，學生可在這裏下載更多的互動教材；iBood Author，這是一個自成生成圖書的應用程序；以及iTunes U，老師們可以使用這個應用來製作數字課程，並與學生們分享教學課件。

Protections are needed to prevent students from cheating — say, by e-mailing test answers to their pals or submitting work that someone else has created. And much to the distress of one of my digitally oriented grandsons, whose penmanship is atrocious, students still must learn how to write with a pen or pencil.

還需要提防學生作弊——比方說，用email將考試答案發給同學，或者提交別的同學已經完成的作業。此外，學生們仍然應當學習用鋼筆或鉛筆寫字，這個要求肯定會讓我的那個字寫得特別爛、對數碼產品十分癡迷的小孫子感到悲憤不已。

A remaining impediment: Will e-textbooks permit students who once complained that "the dog ate my homework" to find a new ream of excuses?

還有一個障礙：有了電子教材，原先抱怨“我的作業被狗吃了”的同學們，還能想到什麼新的藉口嗎？

"The battery died, and I couldn't charge it." "My iPad got wet in the rain/a puddle/the bathtub."

“沒電了，我沒法充電。”“我的iPad被雨/水坑/浴缸給泡溼了。”

Or even: "My little brother hammered it to death."

甚至是：“我的弟弟把它摔壞了。”