A preventable disease that begins in childhood?

What health disorder is hunting down our children -- one that can show up next week, or in 50 years? It's bone disease, including osteoporosis, the weakening of bones usually found among the elderly.

The problem is, young Americans aren't getting the nutrition they need for healthy bones. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, only about 14 percent of girls and 36 percent of boys ages 12 to 19 get the recommended daily amount of calcium. The teenage years are when bones are built up for a lifetime of use.

As a result, Duane Alexander, M.D., director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, calls osteoporosis "a pediatric disease with geriatric consequences."

But osteoporosis isn't the only problem. As teens drink more soda and less milk and orange juice, the number of fractures among children and young adults has gone up. Pediatricians are also seeing the return of rickets, a bone disease had became almost nonexistent after vitamin D was added to milk in the 1950s.

January 12, 2002

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