Whether you’re drinking a glass of milk, taking yogurt or prescribed calcium supplements, it’s no secret that it’s one of the most important things to include in your daily diet.
Calcium, iron, zinc, these are few of the minerals that our body really needs to function properly, and while calcium is the most critically needed, it runs out very quickly. As we progress and grow, and not to mention take in other unhealthy things, the natural calcium in our bones continues to be released from the body. So it needs to be replaced.
Bones grow rapidly during adolescence, and teens need enough calcium to build strong bones and fight bone loss later in life. But many don’t get the recommended daily amount of calcium. In addition, people who smoke or drink soda, caffeinated beverages, or alcohol may get even less calcium because those substances interfere with the way the body absorbs and uses calcium.
Bone calcium begins to decrease in young adulthood and people gradually lose bone density as they age — particularly women, as I mentioned. 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 fractures from weakened bones.
So what to do? Include daily calcium in our diets for better body development. And while there is a continued debate over the use of supplements or the impure state of the dairy products being sold nowadays, nothing can deny the fact that calcium cannot be cut out from our diets completely because of these matters.
It is important to know how to get calcium and how much you need it.
Some common sources of calcium include dairy products, vegetables, soy foods, calcium-fortified foods, beans, fish, almond milk etc.
And another important thing to look into is if you’re lactose intolerant or not, which unfortunately not many people are aware of in this society. Being lactose intolerant means that your body can’t tolerate lactose (the primary abundant protein that dairy etc contains), and when such people take these lactose abundant foods, their body reacts the same as reacting to an intruding virus. It can cause problems and it’s generally just better to be safe than sorry.
Majority of the people around us, and even ourselves lack the required amount of calcium and while it’s also important not to overdose on calcium because that imbalance creates problems as well, we really need to start focusing on the little things in our diet.
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