Random reminder

Press, 30 July 1986, Page 30

Random reminder

CASH AND CARRIER

The Osteopathic Association of Great Britain has been poking electrodes into the back muscles of volunteers to find out more about backache, neckache, and shoulder pains. Their volunteers (who were transistorised, not connected by cable to anything) were then issued with five kilos of shopping packed into (a) bags carrier string or plastic with handles, or (b) bags paper flatbottomed without handles, and sent off to cross the High Street. The paper bag has to be clutched with both hands, close to the body and high up. The electrodes recorded hardly a twitch. The carrier bag with handles, held at arm’s length because that is where the hand is generally attached, produces grotesque stresses and occasionally an actual strain. Instinctively to relieve the tension, on the lower back by tightening the abdominal muscles leads to greater twisting of the shoulders. Balancing the load by taking another carrier bag in the other had results in fewer direct traumas, but to swing in any direction to avoid a big red bus produces

gyroscopic precession which takes you straight under the wheels. It is impossible to clutch the carrier bag, although most people have tried, because it is slippery and amorphous. The 0.A.G.8. wants it redesigned, the handles removed, a square bottom folded into its shape, and the material to be something fibrous. This is noble of them, for as it is now it keeps them rich. The supermarket chain Sainsburys is not convinced. Sainsburys have just replaced the grocery bag paper (8 pence) with the carrier bag plastic (5 pence).

In New Zealand the cardboard carton (free) is still popular although it is easy to let them pack 50 kilos in and you can do your back that way. Also, large cornflake cartons are designed to hold cornflakes, and large toilet paper cartons are designed to hold ‘fluffy tissues”, and they tend to split along the glue lines and drop 50 kilos of stuff all over your feet. The last word should remain with the President of the Greymouth Plunket: “Chuck the groceries in the pram, for heaven’s sake. Cuddle the KID."