When parents are sending their children back to school this fall, they should check their backpacks to ensure they aren't too heavy. Consumer Reports found some sixth graders who carried an average weight of 18.4 pounds in their backpacks - about 17.2 percent of their body weight. A loaded backpack should weigh no more than 10 to 20 percent of a child's total weight, but Consumer Reports recommends staying closer to 10 percent.

The latest reports on backpacks and healthier fruit snacks are part of ConsumerReports.org's Back-to-School hub (www.consumerreports.org/backtoschool) which features over 50 reports including back to school health tips, tips for packing a healthy lunch, the best cars for teens and buying advice and ratings of dorm room gear and electronics.
 

Backpack Basics: Tips for Choosing & Properly Using
 

To gauge how much weight children are carrying around, Consumer Reports' technicians visited three elementary schools in Amityville, N.Y. and weighed 56 kids from second, fourth and sixth grades both with their backpacks and without. Not surprisingly, the sixth-graders had the heaviest load at an average backpack weight of 18.4 pounds. Next came the second-graders' backpacks at 5.3 pounds and finally the fourth-graders had the smallest average backpack weight at 4.6 pounds.
 

To ensure a child's backpack is as safe as possible, Consumer Reports advises that the pack should sit about 2 inches above the waist, and with shoulder straps close to the body. Also, the straps should be shortened (and the excess length fastened securely out of the way) so they can't get stepped on or caught in doors. Below are some of the features Consumer Reports recommends looking for when shopping for a new backpack this fall:
 

-- Shoulder straps that are contoured and padded to soften the load of the pack on a child's back.
 

-- A waist belt to stabilize the pack and transfer weight to the hips.
 

-- A padded or quilted back or one with mesh fabric to make the bag less sweaty on steamy days.
 

-- Compression straps on the sides of the pack to tighten a partially-filled backpack.
 

-- Reflective trim on the back and sides of the pack to add visibility in the fall and winter months, when kids may travel to and from school in near darkness.
 

Unsavory Snacks
 

Also featured on ConsumerReports.org's Back to School hub are the results of Consumer Reports' latest taste-tests of fruit snacks that actually contain fruit. Parents should think twice before packing these seemingly healthy snacks - Consumer Reports' kid testers didn't love most of the products they were asked to taste-test and most of them said they wouldn't eat these products again.
 

All of the nine fruit snacks Consumer Reports tested are nutritionally better than the fruit-flavored snacks such as Betty Crocker Fruit Roll-ups that contain corn syrup, sugar, and partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil. Consumer Reports found good nutritional choices in the three flavors of FruitaBu's Organic Smoooshed Fruit Twirls, two of which - apple and strawberry - garnered the most positive responses from kid testers. Additionally, Stretch's Island Fruit Co.'s apple-flavored snack got a somewhat positive response and was also a good nutritional choice.
 

To learn more about the nutritional content of the products tested and what Consumer Reports' kid testers thought of them, visit www.consumerreports.org/backtoschool.
 

About ConsumerReports.org
 

Consumer Reports and ConsumerReports.org are published by the Consumers Union, which accepts no outside advertising, no free test samples, is an independent, nonprofit organization, and has no agenda other than interests of consumers. With more than 3 million active, paid subscribers, ConsumerReports.org is larger than any other publication-based Web site. All visitors have free access to helpful advice, safety alerts, recalls, e-Ratings of online commerce sites, and more. Subscribers gain access to Consumer Reports' unbiased product and service Ratings and Recommendations, selections from the latest issue of Consumer Reports, a searchable archive of the past four years of ratings, Consumer Reports' exclusive product and car reliability reports, interactive decision guides, and, among other features, an ability to participate in expert discussions. There are two types of subscriptions to ConsumerReports.org (www.consumerreports.org/main/commerce/agreement.jsp): an annual subscription for $26 (current magazine subscribers join for $19), or a monthly for $4.95.
 

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