Rickets, a disease where bones become soft, has been appearing more and more. The reason is children now are not getting enough calcium in their diet as in the past. Lack of calcium, a lack of exercise, and a lack of sunshine has endangered adolescents of possibly getting osteoporosis later in life and has caused the increase in rickets.
Children now are busy staying inside, on their computers and not outside in the sunshine where they can be getting vitamin D to help them absorb calcium. In addition, they need to be drinking more milk and exercising so that they can increase their bone density. For example, the dominant arm of a tennis player has 35% more bone than the other arm. Clearly, exercise is an important factor.
So be sure to get some calcium in your diet, lots of exercise, and a little sunshine.
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9 comments:
35% more bone? I didn't know that having more bone in your body is a good thing- I thought it is good to have strong bones. I'm not saying that you are wrong, Natalie. I just think that it sounds weird to be encouraging the build up of more bone.
My mom's always telling me that I don't get enough calcium, but I never bother to listen to her. I drink milk once a day, so I should be okay right? Apparently not. Thanks for the info Natalie!
Natalie, could you please specify on some of the things that you mentioned?
For example:
How much has rickets "been appearing more and more" (provide a statistic)? How much calcium should be in our diets?
How much exercise should we get?
How much sunshine should we be exposed to?
Sorry for all the questions, I just found this post to be somewhat vague.
There's no one statistic to sum up the increase in rickets worldwide or nationwide that I can find, but here are two articles which discuss it:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/28/BAGS7KQHBF1.DTL&hw=stanford&sn=003&sc=354
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3210615.stm
It's interesting because they postulate two other causes for rickets. Breast feeding and pollution. I suppose that pollution could be indirectly associated with sun exposure.
Natalie, is it the combination that is causing the increases, or does each deficiency correlate to only one of the diseases?
Maybe bone density, Ben.
Got Milk?
here is the link for the article http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_7568739?source=rss&nclick_check=1
Ben, I think the more bone we have, the stronger our bones are which decreases the chances of breaking bones or bone thinning later in life.
Thanks for the correction Annie, and the clarification Natalie.
I thought i heard somewhere, or maybe it was just my mom, but drinking more milk helps you grow, if you drink during growth spurts. I mean it makes logical sense that the bones would become stronger and bigger, which may in fact help growth. Although, this might just be a theory since i know people who drink milk but dont grow...
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