Investigation of the Effect of Varied Schoolbag Weight on the Health of Primary Students: A Quantitative Plantar Pressure Study

The aim of this study was to explore the effects of varied schoolbag weight on biomechanics of primary students in terms of planter pressure distribution, so as to clarify the threshold of the safety weight bearing for primary students. Sixty healthy children from primary school between the grade 1 to 6 were recruited and those with any scoliosis or foot injury were excluded. Changes of plantar pressure with weight bear increasing in terms of parameters of mean pressure (MP), contact area (CA), pressure-time integral (PTI) and Timecost were measured and the data were analyzed by model of ANOVA with significant level of 0.05 and confident interval of 95%. Our results show that pressure of 0% BW, 5% BW and 10% BW were significantly lower than those of 15% BW and 20% BW under the majority of foot regions, particularly at the medial forefoot and rearfoot. Thereby, our study suggested that the weight of primary students' bag should not exceed 15% BW.