Unbagging The Truth

February 28th, 2007 • Related • Filed Under

Do you know the average girl lifts weight  about 9kg on her shoulder and depending on how much she is on the road, we could multiply that to about 9kg over 3 hours of usability and that means by the end of a workday, she would have carried on just one shoulder a total of 27kg, maybe I exaggerate a little bit and my math ain’t so good, but I hope you get the drift. Hey, no more need to go to gym for weight training unless you don’t mind lopsided shoulders.


(Picture courtesy of http://www.bergdorfgoodman.com)

These days the average bag if it is leather weighs about 3-5kg, especially with today’s Chloe bags and Chloe look-a-likes, it is metal buckles and pockets galore, with matching padlocks and then add in all the knick knacks and must have women essentials thrown in and you wonder if 9kg is actually an understatement.

You may well deny this and I dare you to weigh your own bags and find out for yourself this unspoken truth. How often when we buy a bag have, do we actually evaluate the weight of the bag versus the design? How many times have you told yourself, you need to clean up your bag and yet, still carry the same amount of weight after the “clean up” because you went out and found new “necessary” replacements.

The look these days glorify the tall wedge shoes and the big bags, and it is really a concern for some medical quarters on the pressure that the back, knees and shoulders are subjected to. I, personally, have been suffering from chronic neck and back pain from injury of old… absolute not related to my vanity. However, I can’t help but wonder if my inability to heal or be totally free of pain from the slightest exertion or extended carrying of weight is perhaps ever so slightly attributable to the amount of weight I subject my ill prepared body to, daily.

It is really different when we are carrying weights in the gym or when women of yonder years carry heavy weights in the farms. They are working and dressed appropriately for the “occasion” so to speak. They will be in “work” clothes, probably lightweight mostly and most often then not flat shoes. When in this mode of “work’ they actually manage to balance the weight so that there are no unnecessarily pressure on any one side. There are also necessary core muscle exercises and warm up done properly especially in a gym to ensure that the muscles and back is constantly strengthened. And I presume if you work in a farm , the form of warm up is by doing more work.

Envisage a working girl in 3 inch heels and a 9.5kg bag on one shoulder, rushing to work and lugging her heavy bag and  going from meeting to meeting and at the end of the day, there is shopping to be done. Think of the extended pressure on either shoulder and visits to a chiropractor has become a fashion must have for me.

For a short while there, I thought I found my answer to vanity without pain albeit a trifle expensive but no pain no gain, as they say and I rather it be in my wallet then in my neck and back. At RM80 a “pop”, and quite literally chiropractors “pop” your bones back in place, these visits provided temporary relief. But it is safe to say, as a long term measure, it is not a real solution because the problem lay in the cause of the pain. I have since found out that pressure on your right shoulder affects your left shoulder blade and gives pressure to your neck and if severe also affects the right side of body like the leg, not to mention immediate painful pressure to the back. All these pressure will weaken the muscles and subject them to easier wear and tear. It means that I am more susceptible to injuries in any physical activity that I may embark on.

But, what is a girl to do… I need to find the middle ground between vanity and health. And I appeal to the designers and manufacturers in their fashion directions to consider our health for we are weak of flesh and not of rational minds when it comes to choosing between the two.
I practically live in my handbag. My gym bag is no lightweight either. And I actually carry both bags on the same shoulder to the gym, back and fro. Fellow gym bunnies laugh at me… but well, there is the shampoo that I need and the body lotion my skin drinks or will be so dehydrated beyond rescue if I don’t use after every shower, not to mention, the several change of clothing (in case I catch a chill, I am after all concern for my health) for two workout sessions and the after work-out “dressed to party” or “home to bed” versions.

My handbag is leather, the real “thang” you know and in it I have several bunches of keys for emergencies and just in case situations, of course my trustee notebook, wallet, name card holder and a separate set of make up from the one in gym bag, for more just in case situations… emm, …maybe it is just me…

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