I always thought that bone disease was something that didn’t affect people like me—by me, I mean young people.
It wasn’t until I began working at the American Bone Health that I realized that everything that I do now, as a young adult, will impact my health in the future. Growing up, I took my health for granted. I just thought that I was born healthy-I didn’t think that what I was doing contributed to my health. I was a very active child, adolescent and young adult. I ran track for 4 years, I played soccer for 10 years and I did karate for about 2 years—I was pretty athletic. I ate pretty well—I didn’t like milk growing up, but I LOVED orange juice and luckily for me, my mom always bought calcium fortified orange juice. So I guess that made up for the milk that I was lacking.
I write all this to say that I unknowingly was preventing myself from the risk of bone disease as an adult. With healthy eating habits and frequent exercising, even as a young adult or child, one can prevent their risk of getting bone disease as an older adult. Although bone disease is more prevalent in older populations, our lifestyle patterns that we live now, have a long lasting effect on our health in the future!
