Calcium for Your Body
Keeping your growing bones strong and healthy is important. Good nutrition and exercise can help prevent bones from getting weak. calcium and vitamin D are two important nutrients that help build strong and healthy bones.
Calcium is a mineral that many parts of your body require. Its main job is to build strong bones and teeth. About 99 percent of your body’s calcium is in your bones and teeth. A very small amount of calcium is in body fluids such as blood. But this small amount performs vital functions, including the following:
- Keeping a strong heart beat
- Controlling blood pressure
- Making muscles move
- Helping blood clot
- Sending nerve messages
If you make the right choices, the food you eat will provide the calcium you need. If you do not get enough calcium, your body will take calcium from your bones to support other vital functions, weakening the bones.
Your bones are like a bank. The calcium that you eat is put into the bone bank. The bone bank donates calcium to your blood to make sure blood levels always stay normal. If you do not eat enough calcium, the bone bank will become empty. It is very important to eat lots of calcium-rich foods to keep blood levels up while keeping your bone bank full and strong!
During childhood and adolescence, the body uses the mineral calcium to build strong bones — a process that’s all but complete by the end of the teen years. Bone calcium begins to decrease in young adulthood and progressive loss of bone occurs as we age, particularly in women.
Teens, especially girls, whose diets don’t provide the nutrients to build bones to their maximum potential are at greater risk of developing the bone disease osteoporosis, which increases the risk of fracture from weakened bones. Younger kids and babies with little calcium and vitamin D intake (which aids in calcium absorption) are at increased risk for rickets. Rickets is a bone-softening disease that causes severe bowing of the legs, poor growth, and sometimes muscle pain and weakness.
When kids get enough calcium and physical activity during childhood and the teen years, they can start out their adult lives with the strongest bones possible. Although there isn’t definite scientific proof yet that taking in these amounts of calcium will result in stronger bones when kids grow up, the current recommendations are:
- 1 to 3 years — 500 milligrams of calcium daily
- 4 to 8 years — 800 milligrams
- 9 to 18 years — 1,300 milligrams