Time to load your skeletons, girls

…Grammies aren’t the only people who should worry about osteoporosis, or thinning bones.

…There is a period in the pre-teens where girls can load their skeleton with bone cells, against future thinning and possible breaks.

…That window is called puberty.

…This is when girls should be doing a lot of load-bearing exercise. Not only the density of bones, but their structure is important, say researchers at Duke Univ.

…If you have girls jump off a box 2 feet high and land on their feet 100 times, three times a week, this can have a very positive effect.

…Calcium and Vitamin D in the diet are also important. You need 1000 mg of calcium a day from childhood through menopause.

…The average diet with no dairy proves 400 to 600 mgs. A glass of milk adds 250 mgs more. Yogurt is 200 mgs.

…800 international units of Vitamin D is also recommended. That means 15 mins a day in the sun without sunblock.

…All those teenagers jumping off boxes—they do paint a picture. They are too old for hopscotch, right? HA loved hopscotch.