The Building Blocks of Healthy Bones

Strong bones are the building blocks of a healthy body; they are like a good foundation for a house. You cannot build on a shaky, iffy foundation and expect there to be no problems with your house later on down the line. You must invest in a good foundation for your body too in order to have good overall health and to ensure your health can weather many things to come. Your bones need to properly support your body from birth until the day you die. You only get one set! Bones are also the protectors for the delicate organs in your body. Here are some tips to ensure your child has the best possible bone structure to set their body up effectively for life.

Calcium

The body builds bones during the childhood and adolescent period and by the time you are in your twenties, the bone density is at its maximum. Calcium deposits onto your bones as a crystal and is what gives them their tough strength. The bones are also a storage space for the calcium the body needs to survive. If your child is not getting enough calcium in their diets, their body will take what it needs from their bones and use it for the other functions it requires calcium for.

We all know that milk and yogurt are crucial foods for a young child to properly develop strong bones and to help them grow. Other good calcium sources include cheese, figs, white beans, sardines and salmon, almonds, spinach, cabbage, blackstrap molasses, black-eyed peas, bok choy, seaweed, oranges, turnip leaves, sesame seeds and kale.

Vitamin D

Calcium and Vitamin D go hand in hand to building strong bones. Vitamin D assists the body in better absorbing Calcium. Spending fifteen to twenty minutes a day exercising or playing in the sun is the best Vitamin D remedy your child can get. The body can produce Vitamin D when exposed to the sun.

Vitamin D can be found in foods such various types of fish (raw fish is the highest source), fortified cereals, mushrooms, cod liver oil, fortified tofu, black and red caviar, fortified dairy products (such as milk and cheese), egg yolks and oysters.

Vitamin K

Vitamin K is like that best friend who does nice things behind your back without you really knowing who it was or even what they did. It is a silent helper to retain the amount of Calcium your body excretes. Vitamin K works well as a team with Vitamin D.

The foods rich in Vitamin K are extremely healthy for the body in other ways as well. You will undoubtedly have heard of some of them as "superfoods". They are not new fads. These foods have been around in our diets for years. Add foods such as kale, beet greens, spinach, mustard greens, parsley, swiss chard, broccoli, turnip greens, and brussel sprouts to your child's diet for more Vitamin K.