Recently, Lu Yi, a Chinese actor posted a picture of him picking up his daughter from school on Weibo. It should have been a lovely father-and-daughter moment. However, it somehow led to a heated discussion about education on the net.
It turns out that the focus of the argument is whether Lu should carry the backpack for his little girl. Some netizens questioned the move that it’s an act of pampering.
“I never hold the pack for my own child. I always tell him that study is his all thing. Don’t count on me.” - @papiuupapiuu
“I think it’s better to let kids become independent as soon as possible. After all, they can’t rely on us all the time.” - @auntwatermelon
Others think it is no big deal, since the pack may be too heavy for a seven-year-old girl.
“I used to think kids should carry their packs themselves. But after I held my son’s pack myself, I changed my idea.” - @luojing
“I can totally understand. The pack is just too heavy.” - @fallenleaf
So, are the backpacks really this heavy as claimed? Last year, reporters from the Paper did a survey. They weighed the backpacks of kids from three different elementary schools in Nanjing.
According to the results, the average weight of the packs of kids from grade one to two reaches 2.89kg (6.37lb), with a maximum of 3.7kg (8.16lb) and a minimum of 2kg (4.41lb). As to the kids from grade three to five, the average weight reached as much as 5.3kg (11.68lb), with a maximum of 7.2kg (15.87lb) and a minimum of 4.1kg (9.04lb).
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How come the packs are such heavy?
“The textbooks we used didn’t contain so many illustrations. Now the textbooks are prettier but larger,” says one of the netizens, “Also, we didn’t have so much homework back then. Now the kids have to bring home textbooks as well as a good deal of practice books.”
Is carrying overweight backpacks going to affect kids’ health then? “Of course,” answered Wu Longxi, orthopedist from Jiangsu Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine. “If they constantly carry something beyond their capacity, their spine will definitely get damaged since their muscles and bones are still fragile.”
Is it necessary to help kids with the backpacks? Would you help your kid with it? Let us know your thoughts!
