Dispensary Corner 19 Mar 12
March 19, 2012
BACK pain in children has been
linked to heavy school backpacks
in a study of Spanish schoolkids
published in Archives of Disease in
Childhood this month.
The study looked at more than
1400 children, finding that many
of the students had “excessively
loaded” backpacks.
There was a strong correlation
between heavy bags and reports
of back pain, with pupils having
the heaviest bags more than 50%
more likely to report a sore back.
The report’s authors suggested
that school children should not
carry anything that weighs more
than 10% of their body weight.
Back pain was a bigger problem
for girls, and was also reported
more as children got older -
probably because they were
carrying heavier textbooks.
The researchers also said that
carrying similar loads in most
workplaces would breach health
and safety guidelines.
THE vexing issue of dietary
requirements in space has been
addressed by a new menu for
space tourists devised by the UK’s
first astronaut, Helen Sharman,
famed for visiting Russia’s Mir
space station in 1991.
Sharman has collaborated with
experimental food scientists
to create the menu which
addresses special space needs
such as needing extra radiationfighting
antioxidants as well as
stronger flavours because of
dulled in-orbit tastebuds.
The menu includes some of the
strongest cheese ever made, a
“Supersonic salad” made using
crops which can be grown in
space; and “Pot Roast a Pollo” -
said to be a full Sunday roast
dinner in a reheatable tub.
“Like the best works of science
fiction, the menu includes
wonderful flights of fancy but
raises the key challenges facing
chefs catering for leisure travellers
leaving earth’s orbit,” she said.
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