The heavy backpack crusade marches on. CNN reports that they've conducted a "study" to prove the obvious. Heavy backpacks make you walk funny. (That was money well spent.)

Thirteen children ages 8 and 9 walked about 1,310 feet without a backpack, and wearing packs weighing 9 and 13 pounds, while researchers filmed them with a high-speed camera.

"Immediately, you can always tell when backpacks are too heavy, or the kids are tired," said researcher Heidi Orloff of the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. "Their chins are on their chests."

They needed a high speed camera to recognize when a kid is walking funny with an overstuffed back pack? How much lab analysis did that require?

Studies conflict on whether the packs cause the pain, however.

Research by Dr. Andrew Haig, an associate professor of physical medicine, rehabilitation and surgery at the University of Michigan, found no relationship between the weight of the pack and reports of back pain. In his study conducted in 2000, 184 Ann Arbor, Michigan, pupils from third grade through middle school filled out questionnaires. [...]

About one-third of all the children reported back pain, ranging from about 15 percent of the third graders to 46 percent of middle schoolers. But there was no relationship between pack use and pain, Haig said. [...]

He speculated that packs could cause pain by making some pre-existing back problems more severe. But in most cases, parents should not assume first that the pack caused the pain, he said in a telephone interview from Vienna, Austria, where he is on sabbatical.

Regardless of who concludes what, look for the heavy backpack crusade to call for less homework, lighter text books, and books issued on CD-ROM. As I reported back in October, some school systems have already started down that path. I'll also reiterate my prediction that books on CD-ROM will lead to government subsidized computers for the "less fortunate".

All of this pampering and nannyism is making me worry about the future of this country. Could we have liberated Europe in WWII with people that had grown up whining about every little thing?

"Sarge, my rifle is too heavy. Do I have to carry all these bullets around with me?"