Bad news for SJ.com's fashionable women

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070116/wl_canada_nm/canada_life_bags_col_2

Handbags a health hazard, women warned
Bags for women have become bigger and heavier as designers combine briefcases with handbags and straps have become longer but the extra leverage has many patients complaining of neck, shoulder and back problems.

"I see so many women with neck pains and headaches and what I usually do is look for their purse and pick it up," said Jane Sadler, a family practice physician on the medical staff at Baylor Medical Center in Garland, Texas.
...
William Case, a physical therapist in private practice in Houston, Texas, said an aggravated neck or shoulder can lead to upper back problems, meaning pain may then be felt while working at a computer or playing sports.
...
"The extra-large purses are quite phenomenal. They look beautiful when the women wear them, but I don't know how aware they are of the potential problems," Case said.
...
Traditionally women adopted better postures for carrying loads, such as baskets on heads or strapping a papoose across the back, but placing objects on one shoulder was one of the least efficient ways of carrying a load.

"This causes a great imbalance. You only have to see people carrying bags in shopping centers, looking hunched up like Quasimodo," he said.

 

Yeah, they did a big blowout piece on this same topic on the local news here last week.

Earth shattering, I tell ya...

 

I fear my 35-pound camera bag is greater threat to my health...

 

This is why I carry little, tiny bags that don't have a shoulder strap. Keeps my back safe and sound, and looks cuter.

 

Heck yes they do.

 

Yeah, and you push the rest of your crap in a grocery cart you stole from Winn-Dixie.

 

Lugging my computer bag around doesn't do much for my posture either.

 

Hey, stop trying to out me . . . besides the cart's from Albertsons.

 

... and Killick chuckles, because the random ad at the top of the page is for begborroworsteal.com's... handbags.

 

I'm with you guys - I've never done the big bag thing. Especially the big "hobo" bag - yuck.

Big metalics are supposedly the thing right now. To me, it couldn't be more tacky.

 

I have never carried one of those massive bags, but I usually also carry one in my hand. Don't like having anything under my arm, just because it feels weird.

I have two of the seat-belt bags that I carry by the straps. My one Coach bag is a hand-held, the other is a shoulder strap. I don't carry the shoulder strap one often, but it's pink. I'll carry it more in the spring and summer.

 

Would you laugh if you knew it wasn't random? They're watching, Killick.