A large handful of dates and a big glass of ice cold milk. Yum! This simple snack was my daily childhood after school energy replenishment. Without realising it I was making great deposits in my bone bank account when my body most needed it – the teenage years. About 45% of our total skeleton is laid down in adolescence. How strong our bones get during this mega-growth period determines our bone strength for the rest of our lives.

It’s sort of like an n shape. We build up calcium in our bones until our early 20’s, it tapers off for the next 20 or so years and then we hit the calcium down-hill slide. As adults we can slow down this calcium loss but what counts most is how much calcium we had in our bones to start with. This is why it’s so important for teenagers to eat plenty of calcium. Compared with children or young adults, teenagers actually absorb more calcium from their food. It’s a great design feature that helps them meet their huge calcium needs – around 4-5 serves of dairy foods each day.

I wish I had bones as strong as yours,” the sports physician said as she looked at my bone density results. “It’s from all that running you’ve done,” she said approvingly. Putting stress on our bones by walking, running, dancing and lifting weights helps keeps our bones strong. Bones are not simply the scaffolding on which the rest of our body hangs. They are living, active tissue that’s continually breaking down and rebuilding. The outer bone is hard and compact but inside is a smaller amount of spongy honeycomb-like bone that

Stuff I’ve found digging around on the net … with my take on it ..c

Physical Education Key To Improving Health In Low-income Adolescents School-based physical education plays a key role in curbing obesity and improving fitness among adolescents from low-income communities, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco and UC Berkeley.

It’s what we all know: physical activity is good for your body and your mind – and it’s much more fun than sitting in the classroom all day.

TV Bombards Children With Commercials For High-fat And High-sugar Foods Childhood obesity in the United States is reaching epidemic proportions. With more than one fourth of advertising on daytime and prime time television devoted to foods and beverages and continuing questions about the role television plays in obesity, a study in the November/December issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior

Calcium is essential for young growing bodies and dairy foods (milk, yoghurt and cheese) are the best source of this bone-building nutrient. The NZ Ministry of Health recommends that children under the age of five drink 500ml (about two cups) of milk each day. Make it full-fat milk up until the age of two – they need the extra fat and kilojoules for growth.

If your child isn’t into large glasses of milk, try these calcium-rich food ideas:

• Sprinkle cheese on food
• Turn old bread into Cheese Crispies – slice bread into fingers, thinly spread with Vegemite or Marmite, sprinkle with cheese and bake at 160C for 20 minutes until crisp
• Yoghurt – a handy snack. I buy natural yoghurt and add honey or fruit. Fruit yoghurt often has preservative which I try to steer clear of, especially for little ones. Check the use-by date: the fresher the yoghurt, the more live, healthy bacteria are in it.
• Custard
• Milk puddings
• Rice pudding – turn left-over cooked rice into pudding by adding milk, a sprinkle of brown sugar and some sliced banana. Or beat an egg with 2 tablespoons of sugar and a cup of milk, pour over 1/2 cup of cooked rice and bake at 160C for 20-30 minutes
• Smoothies and milkshakes
• Milk ice-blocks – beat a little sugar and vanilla essence (or Milo) into milk and freeze in ice cube trays with an ice-block stick in each
• Make porridge with milk instead of water
• Make creamy soups with milk (not cream – it doesn’t have much calcium)
• Mashed potato with plenty of milk
• Broccoli or Cauliflower Cheese – Make a quick cheese sauce with milk, cornflour and grated cheese
• Sardines on grainy toast
• Salmon fried rice – make sure you eat the bones!
• Oranges
• Orange almond cake – oranges and almonds provide calcium but not as much as dairy foods
• Calcium enriched soy drink – I like vanilla flavoured So Good
• Play outside in the sun for a while each day. Sunshine stimulates bone-friendly vitamin D, weight-bearing exercise builds bones – and playing is more fun than house-work! Enjoy these bone-building moments with your children.