Childhood: Building the Foundation for a Lifetime

Growth and development of skeleton takes about 30 years. The goal is to build the strongest bones possible that will last a lifetime.  A healthy lifestyle is important from pregnancy on. If you are trying to get pregnant, your planning should include a few simple measures to ensure adequate calcium intake and vitamin D, a healthy diet, and regular exercise.

Growth and accrual of bone mass take place at different rates from rapid growth in infants to slower growth in toddlers and kids. What’s happening in the skeleton along with bone healthy tips are given at each stage of growth and development of your child starting with pregnancy.

Tweens to Teens: Developing Bone-Healthy Habits for Life

Tweens to teens are critical years for bone growth and development. Rapid bone growth follows after your child’s height spurt. Broken bones are common during this period. Bone is also quite responsive to high impact exercises, like jumping or running sprints.

By the end of the teen years, about 90% of adult bone mass is in place.

A challenging time for youth and parents but crucial for tweens and teens to develop healthy lifestyle habits. Not only will the bone benefit from but their health in general. On the other hand, starting smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol during this time is detrimental to bone and general health. Learn more about growth and development along with bone healthy tips for your tweens and teens.

Adults: Making the Most of Your Peak Bone Mass

Growth and development of the skeleton is complete by your late 20s to early 30s. Your bone mass at this time of maturity is called peak bone mass. Your adult bone mass will need to last the rest of your life. Essentially there is no middle-age plateau but slow bone loss.

Optimizing your lifestyle during early adulthood through middle age is vital to preserve as much bone mass as possible. For women the transition to menopause with the loss of estrogen accelerates bone loss. Learn more about what’s happening at each decade along with bone healthy tips for every age.

Seniors: Maintaining Healthy Bones into Late Life

Life after menopause for women is associated with silent bone loss. During this key time, it is important to assess your risk for osteoporosis and breaking a bone. A bone density scan may be useful as part of that assessment.

Men are at risk for osteoporosis and breaking bones, too.  Don’t ignore your bones just because you think it’s an old woman’s disease. Men don’t fare so well after breaking a hip with one in three men dying within a year of their fracture.

Do the best you can by minimizing factors that promote bone loss and maintaining healthy lifestyle measures along with focusing on fall prevention. You can reduce your risk of breaking bones but you need to spend time and focus attention on maintaining healthy bones. Learn more about bone healthy tips for 60 plus age groups.