Backpack weight and its medical effects are not just problems for middle or high school students.

Boston University occupational therapy professor Karen Jacobs, who developed Backpack Awareness Day in Iceland last year, said she plans to expand the event in the United States.

Volunteers from BU Rotoract Club will set up scales from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. Wednesday outside the Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences for students to weigh their backpacks. The club will inform students and the general public how the weight of their backpack, even into their college years, may be affecting their health.

“College students, as well as professors, carry very heavily loaded backpacks, too, and sometimes just on one shoulder,” Jacobs said.

She said no one should be carrying a backpack that exceeds 15 percent of his or her bodyweight.

According to Jacobs, 219 students weighed their backpacks at last year’s event, and seven percent turned out to have overloaded backpacks. Eighty percent of the backpacks weighed were 10 percent or less of the owner’s bodyweight.

Jacobs helped establish Backpack Awareness Day in the United States while she was the American Occupational Therapy Association president in 2000. While teaching in Iceland on a Fulbright Scholarship last fall, she helped the country start its own national Backpack Awareness Day.

“I approached the Icelandic Occupational Therapy Association and the Icelandic Institute of Public Health, and both organizations thought it was an important initiative,” she said.

Jacobs will return to Iceland this month for a week of backpack awareness and education. Jacobs will also give the keynote address at the 30th anniversary of IOTA’s national conference.

Jacobs said last year’s initiative was enthusiastically supported by the Icelandic community.

“The kids were all excited, and the parents and teachers [too],” she said.

Sargent Dean Gloria Waters said many students ignore the weight of their backpacks and do not take the important step of prevention.

“Most people don’t think about how much they carry until they have a sore neck or back,” she said.

Jacobs has been educating about backpack awareness for more than a decade.

“The three aspects of the initiative are buying the right backpack, packing it correctly and wearing it correctly,” Jacobs said, adding that the wrong choices could lead to chronic neck, shoulder and back pain.

According to fourth-year Sargent student Nehal Patel, a volunteer for the event, improperly worn backpacks can also ruin posture. This can subsequently cause pinched nerves and slipped discs in the spine.

The Rotoract Club, which is sponsored by the Brookline Rotary Club, volunteered with Jacobs in neighboring schools before starting the day on campus last year.

Rotoract Club Treasurer Roxanne Chess said backpacks can still affect people beyond their childhood.

“If we’re not carrying them correctly, it could be bad for our body structure,” the Sargent senior said. “I have a back problem myself, so I’ve always been very aware of what teachers expect people to bring to class.”

Waters said Sargent has supported Jacob’s contributions in various ways because her work “promotes a healthy life and awareness.”

“The college has supported Jacob’s work with backpack awareness by providing release time last year when she received a Fulbright to study in Iceland, as well as by publicizing it in their publications,” Waters said in an email.