Strong bones built in youth: simple exercise and nutrition is best

As a parent, are you worried about your child's bone density and the threat of osteoporosis? The dean of rehabilitation medicine
at the University of Alberta says you should be. Martin Ferguson-Pell, PhD, believes that children's poor nutrition and exercise habits may lead to an increase in bone problems later in life and statistics agree.

In a Canadian consensus report in 2006, an estimated one in four women and one in eight men over the age of 50 suffer from osteoporosis, a disease that causes bones to become less dense and more prone to fracture. And the 2008 national report card on osteoporosis says that "as many as two million Canadians may be at risk of osteoporotic fractures during their lifetime."

Osteoporosis causes bones to become thin and weak, making them vulnerable to fracture. Often the first warning sign is a broken bone. Once an individual has broken a bone due to osteoporosis, they are more likely to break another one. Hip fractures caused by
osteoporosis result in 20 per cent of women and 40 per cent of men dying within a year.

"If children are not eating healthy or staying active, they will have a large problem with osteoporosis later on," Ferguson-Pell said.
He has researched osteoporosis for years, in both Canada and the United Kingdom.

In a healthy human bone, cells called osteoclasts eat away at the bone, while other cells called osteoblasts work to replace it. For
those who suffer from osteoporosis, there is an imbalance between the two working cells. Osteoclasts will continue to remove bone minerals while osteoblasts will not keep up their replacement of bone at a suff icient rate. The problem of weak bones could be a result of poor nutrition, lack of exercise, or a hormonal imbalance. Because of these hormonal factors, post-menopausal women and some elderly men are the greatest at risk.

Because older people are more at risk, most children aren't particularly worried about their bone density, Ferguson-Pell says. Parents need to instil the right habits as soon as they can, and he has a few tips to get kids on the right track.

"It is important to build bone density when you are young," he said. "What you have later in life is inf luenced by how you build strong
bones as a kid. "Activity is the key. Just walking is found to maintain bone density," he said, adding that the activities don't
always have to be high-impact.

Because dietary intake can have a big impact on bone density, Ferguson-Pell also says it's important to eat healthy foods. Studies show that foods high in calcium and vitamin D, such as fortif ied milk products, f ish (with bones), and dark green vegetables, have been proven to increase bone strength.

Osteoporosis Canada recommends that children aged four to eight have 800 milligrams of calcium per day, and that youth aged nine to 18 have 1,300 mg daily. For younger children, this could be as easy as a bowl of instant oatmeal for breakfast served with a 250 ml glass of milk, an orange at lunch time and a glass of milk and half a cup of broccoli at supper time. Older children could add to that an extra glass of milk and a sliceof cheese on their sandwich or a quarter of a cup of almonds.

"Kids are not usually concerned about bone density so we need to rely on parents to help them," he said.