Timing Peak Bone Mass & Development in the Adolescent: The Impact of Calcium

As the parent of a teenager, or pre-pubescent child, it is important to understand the dietary recommendations for your children so as to encourage proper growth and development. This is especially true of the health influence over proper bone growth and development.

Bone mass should be a leading focus of a teen and pre-pubescent child's dietary intake. While other vitamins and minerals play a key role in your child's physical and mental health, it is the consumption of those that impact bone mass that may provide for the greatest long term health benefit. Because we all achieve our peak bone bass by early to mid 20's, setting the stage for strong bone mass, in middle childhood and adolescence, may provide for a more powerful impact into adulthood.

For most children, in pre-pubescent and adolescent periods, the use of calcium will play a significant role in building bone mass. In fact, many nutritionists recommend that children in this age group, ranging from 9 to 18 years of age, should consume as much as 1300 milligrams of calcium each day. For many children, this is not achieved by diet. As a result, parents should encourage calcium supplementation on a daily basis.

But, is 1300 milligrams of calcium really effective at improving long term bone health? While this is the recommendation from the dietary programs released by many health organizations, studies have shown that, in most children, the maximum therapeutic benefit of calcium may be achieved between 800 and 1000 milligrams per day. What is of importance is not so much the amount of calcium, whether 800 milligrams or 1300 milligrams but, instead, the timing on which the calcium intake is encouraged. On average the peak therapeutic benefits can be achieved around the age of 12 in most children.