What is the Deal With The Heavy Backpacks...Good for Your Child?

I always had a backpack in school, but in seventh grade it got crazy...homework stopped being handouts and folders and started being textbooks... According to the New York Times, heavy backpacks can cause back pain in young kids, ...The AAP recommends that kids not carry more than 10-20 percent of their body weight, with a strong preference towards the 10-percent end of the scale... ...My mother once weighed my backpack and it came in at 30 pounds, which is more than my actual child weighs now. That was 20 years ago, and even with all our technological advances since then, it seems like the heavy backpack issue is getting worse, not better...