Women and lack of calcium City girls eat less than half the calcium necessary. In the country it’s a bit better, but one in four is in deficit. Amongst males only one in three is above the need set by the experts of the National Nutrition institute. This data emerges from research carried out in primary, secondary and high schools. The results are worrying, because a calcium deficit at a young age leads to more fragile bones at the age of major growth and little reserve calcium in old age.
Moreover it’s only possible in the first part of life to toughen the bones with a good dose of calcium consumed through food: up to 18 years of age we have the maximum ability to absorb calcium from foodstuffs and the maximum efficiency in depositing it within the bones. From 18 to 30 years these abilities of the organism progressively diminish.
After 30 years of age it’s no longer possible to deposit calcium in the bones with the same efficiency but one can only try to reduce the loss.
After 30 years of age there’s no longer any sense in stuffing yourself with cheese and gulping down milk, since the calcium overdose gets eliminated via urine. The reason for which teenagers are so short of calcium is to be sought in the new feeding models which reduce the presence of the most traditional sources of calcium, such as milk, yoghurt and cheeses. Milk is considered by most adolescents as food for children, which doesn’t go well with their aspirations for emancipation and what’s more, especially among girls, begins the desire to not put on weight or get slim, to adhere to prevailing aesthetic models.
Then there’s often the conviction of having an alimentary rejection to milk.
The males are better off because they consume more cheese than most females, but also for them a carton of milk no longer features in their breakfast. For the girls’ part there’s a slightly higher consumption of greens with high calcium content but if consumed in the form of juice or squash they lose a third of the calcium content. Some mineral waters contain a lot of calcium (Ferrarelle and Sangmini over 300 mg/l, San Pellegrino 280, Courmayeur indeed 516), but the young are not assiduous consumers (barely 2% of those interviewed).
To sum up, the research data has raised worry and stimulated a series of actions directed at improving the consumption of calcium in the very young: first of all information and communication campaigns, through schools or the media, addressed as much to teenagers as to their parents.
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