Bone Building – Health for Our Adolescent Girls



Today I peered at a new x-ray of the bones of my left wrist from elbow to the top of my fingers. While I sat waiting for the orthopedic specialist to give me a prognosis of when I could get rid of my pesky cast (like, today maybe), I admired the long curves of my bones, and marveled at their sculpted forms and spaces between, all the while squinting to see if I could tell if my fracture seemed healed. I wondered at the pace of that healing since my tumble in China, and wondered, like many women, how my post-menopausal bone density was doing. The doctor came in just then and my musings vanished with the confirmation and practical progression of the healthy bone-building process occurring in my middle-aged radius.



This reminded me of something I’ve been meaning to tell every parent and movement teacher. I learned a surprising new fact while attending a graduate colloquium on Women in Athletics at St. Mary’s College of California a few years ago. It was such an important yet unknown fact that I couldn’t believe my own ignorance. Had I missed it in my own education? I rushed home and read through my sports medicine and dance medicine texts, my teacher’s guides, books on kinesiology, health and fitness. Nothing there.



What I learned from top sports physiologists was this: adolescent girls build their maximum bone density for life during their teenage years with the support of estrogen and by engaging in strong movement with gravity. Girls who play certain sports, bike, dance, tumble, ride, and climb through their teens are building bones steadily until they hit twenty or so, when all women stop growing bone and begin losing it gradually, with accelerating bone loss as they age. Women have their maximum bone density of their lives at age twenty! Girls who do not participate in strong physical activity fail to grow dense bones, and early-onset osteoporosis can begin. Some girls, according to new studies, may have the bones of a seventy-year old woman at twenty-five.



When I think of my own high school students, I notice that while over half of them have fairly active lives (and some are exceptionally active), many others fail to engage in any significant activity outside their gym lesson. That class, maybe two or three times a week for 45 minutes or so, is all the activity they get. Perhaps they are some of the 80% of youth who begin physical trainings too early and quit for good by the age of 12, just when their bodies are ready for those intense physical challenges. This is a great topic for further research.



We movement educators have a responsibility for knowing our role in helping our adolescent girls grow strong bones, and for helping to educate parents and students alike. I changed my lesson plans to include more intensive aerobic activities in conjunction with my movement themes in the middle and high school. In my eighth and ninth grade classes, I challenge each student to keep an activity log for six weeks. This log includes sports practices and games, gym lessons, and anything else like walking the dog, hiking on the weekends, even walking the stairs at school (some will grasp at anything)! Reviewing these activities offers chances to talk about health in general to all the students, and valuable conversations with the girls ensue. In the fitness classes of the 10th through 12th grades, I encourage (require!) goal setting as a self-motivational tool, and gently but firmly remind the young women of their own responsibility for their health now and in the future. I also share a general report of this work to the parents in a parent evening and in written reports.



When the dirty and smelly four-week old cast was finally cut off, I tenderly washed the fragile, still swollen and bruised wrist and dirty hand with heavenly warm soap and water. I wiggled my thumb and stretched my fingers with the joy of release for a few blissful moments while supporting the surprisingly weak hand with my strong one. I watched a new, blue, clean, and shorter cast built around my arm (two more weeks) and thanked my lucky stars for my own active youth and strong bones. Who knew?



Valerie Baadh, Brisbane, California 10/16/06

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Valerie Baadh