As much as a third of an adult’s skeleton will form during adolescence. So the more active someone is during this time, the stronger those bones will become.
Adolescence is a critical time for growing strong bones. That’s especially true between the ages of 10 and 14 in girls, and 12 to 16 for boys. As much as 36 percent of the adult skeleton forms during these four years. But how strong those bones become depends on how active someone had been during those formative years. That’s the finding of a new study.
“The bigger the bones children make when they are young, the harder it will be to break when they get older,” explains Laura Tosi, she is a doctor. Tosi directs the Bone Health Program at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
Gabel and her team compared the leg and wrist bones of the most active 75 or so kids to the least active 75. After four years, the most active group had bones that were 8 percent stronger than the least active group.
The type of activity matters for bone strength. Bones get stronger when a person does “load-bearing” or “weight-bearing” exercise. These are activities that put pressure on bones. Examples include jumping, running, skipping, basketball and gymnastics.
Swimming is great for building healthy hearts and muscles, but it’s not so great for building strong bones. That’s because it is not a load-bearing activity. Gabel was a competitive swimmer as an adolescent. She says if she knew then what she does now, she would have mixed up her sports. “I would have thrown in jumping or gymnastics,” she says.
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