Mom & Me Math: Milk Bones & Cheese

Achy joints, failing eyesight, heart attacks: These are things you won't have to deal with for a long time, right? So why worry now? As it turns out, the choices you make now can make a big difference in how you feel later in life. I recently learned this lesson the hard way.

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It started with an injury: My doctor suggested a bone scan, which showed that my bones are weaker than average. I don't have osteoporosis, a disease that causes older people to shrink in height and break bones easily. For me, the diagnosis was a scary wakeup call. I'm just 27 years old, but already I'm worried about things that normally happen only to women more than twice my age.

Will I break my hip if I slip on a patch of ice? Is it safe for me to go skiing, lift heavy boxes, play Ultimate Frisbee? Perhaps what upsets me most is the realization that I might have avoided all of this if only I had thought ahead earlier in life. Childhood and adolescence are the most important times to build strong bones. For you, there's still time. Doctors suggest a variety of foods you can eat and exercises you can do as a teenager to build strong bones for life. They're hard but flexible, and they're lightweight but tough.

Without bones, we'd be just puddles of skin and guts. An adult person has bones in his or her body. The outer layer of a typical bone is made of a hard material honeycombed with tunnels. This web of hollow pipes allows a bone to be strong and light. It also allows the passage of nutrients and waste. A protein called collagen gives a bone its elasticity.

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Chemicals known as calcium salts make a bone hard. But, even though our bones support us, they're easy to ignore. Unlike a cut or bruise, a weak bone isn't visible or painful. Osteoporosis is sometimes called a silent disease. People often don't realize they have it until it has progressed so far that they break bones while doing ordinary things, such as walking down stairs or lifting heavy objects. Osteoporosis happens mostly to older people.

But I'm not the only woman in her 20s with weak bones.

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Increasingly, scientists are finding that weak bones are a problem in teenagers and even younger kids. That's especially troubling because youth is the critical time for bone growth. If you've ever seen a skeleton in a museum, you might think that bones are dead. In fact, bones are living tissue. They reshape and rebuild themselves many times as you grow and age. The cycle of building and breaking down bone changes over a person's lifetime.

Strong Bones for Life

Bone-building is fastest during the first 3 years of life and again during adolescence. By the time you're in your 20s, the tissue in your bones is about as tightly packed as it's going to get. Measuring something called bone density tells you how tightly packed the bone tissue is. A high bone density normally shows that you have strong bones. Once you get to be about 35 years old, bone tissue gets broken down more quickly than it's replaced. This means that bones tend to lose tissue, and the bone density goes down.

That's when osteoporosis usually becomes a concern. And it's a bigger risk for women than for men. Getting the right kind of bone-building nutrition and exercise as a teenager is like putting money in the bank. Your bones can stay strong as you get older. Unfortunately, many teenagers don't think about their bones when they order lunch or decide what to do with their free time. They'd rather snack on chips or slurp soda than think about vitamins.

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And parents don't always set the best example. Unlike milk or fortified juice, a soft drink doesn't provide calcium for helping to build strong bones. Junk food has few nutrients. Chef Solus - Keep your bones and teeth happy with lots of calcium! Educational page designed to teach children about the importance of calcium and foods high in calcium. Learning page fun for children and great take home to share with parents. My Plate Activity for Children - Dairy Milk Food Group - Make a healthy plate Worksheet for younger children that has them finding specific foods from the milk food group to make a balanced plate.

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Count the number of these popular foods from the dairy foods group. Great to combine math and learning about dairy foods in one lesson. Printable - Match the Milk Names and Color the Milk Foods Fun matching worksheet to help children learn about the different types of milk products. Kids see how much fun healthy calcium rich foods really are to eat! Children can now play food groups matching game while they learn the foods in the dairy group. Food group memory game cards are color-coded to match the food groups on the My Plate and the Food Pyramid. You can print all five food group matching game printables and mix them together for a larger group.

Print out pages and cut cards along dotted lines. To help game cards last longer, you can paste them onto construction paper and laminate. Trace the words from popular foods from the dairy foods group. Great to combine writing and learning about dairy foods in one lesson. Make your bookmarks that promote the dairy food group. A fun way to remind children how much fun healthy foods made from dairy are! Kids can make, decorate and color their own bookmarks that promote the dairy food group.

This activity promotes the foods from the dairy group. Reward children for making healthy choices. Printable - Word Search Puzzle - Milk Group These word search puzzles focus on the food groups and their health benefit.

These word search puzzles are an easier version with larger letters and 7 words for younger readers. These word search puzzles focus on the food groups, exercise and their health benefits. Each word search puzzle has 10 words for children to find. Teach children a little about the dairy food group in My Plate with our Chef Solus free printable maze for kids K Maze is easy level. Holiday themed with a healthy message from the dairy food group.

Maze is inside an ornament that matches the color of the dairy food group.

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Printable - My Plate Dairy Coloring Sheet Children will have fun learning about the foods from the dairy group on My Plate with our cute coloring sheet.