The clean eating tips you picked up from social media could wreck your bones
By Sam Downing|
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If you stopped drinking milk and eating yoghurt and cheese after an Instagram wellness guru recommended cutting them, your diet could be a “ticking time bomb” for your bones.
That’s the message from the UK’s National Osteoporosis Society (NOS), which has launched its missiles at the clean eating trend for encouraging its adherents to ditch dairy — a food group vital for building a strong skeleton.
A study commissioned for the NOS found that 20 percent of dieters aged 18 to 25 had either cut or significantly reduced dairy from their diet.
While the study determined the most common diet is clean eating — a focus on eating whole, unprocessed foods recently deemed one of 2016’s worst health fads — the NOS noted any of the “fad eating regimes” which eliminate dairy would have the same dangerous impact on bone health.
Under-25s were found to be way more likely to take eating cues from social media, which could result in them missing their only opportunity to reduce their osteoporosis risk.
“Osteoporosis is a painful and debilitating condition and young adults have just one chance to build strong bones and reduce their risk of developing severe problems in later life,” said Professor Susan Lanham-New, the NOS’s clinical advisor and a professor of nutrition at the University of Surrey, in a statement.
“Diet in early adulthood is so important because by the time we get into our late twenties it is too late to reverse the damage caused by poor diet and nutrient deficiencies and the opportunity to build strong bones has passed.”
Professor Lanham-New said young adults need to be encouraged to ditch fad diets, particularly clean eating, and eat from all the food groups — or face a future where broken bones become the norm. (Which sounds like the set-up for a particularly grim series of dystopian young adult novels.)
RELATED: What you need to know before you cut back on dairy
According to Osteoporosis Australia, an estimated 1.2 million Australians have osteoporosis, aka brittle bones that fracture easily, and a further 6.3 million have low bone density.
One of the biggest osteoporosis risk factors is a lack of dietary calcium (along with a lack of vitamin D, which helps calcium work in the body). Your recommended daily intake is 1000mg, or 1300mg if you’re older than 50: a cup of milk has about 300mg and a tub of yoghurt has almost 400mg.
But calcium is the nutrient most likely to be missing from Aussie diets: According to the most recent Australian Health Survey, about three quarters of adult women (73 percent) and half of all men (51 percent) did not meet their calcium requirements.
That’s partly due to people cutting dairy from their diet over concerns about its effect on their weight. In 2016, CSIRO and University of Adelaide found that one in six Aussies avoid all dairy products.
Calcium is found in lots of non-dairy foods (here’s some examples), and you can also take calcium supplements — though that’s not generally recommended as it can increase your risk of heart problems.
RELATED: Why your on-trend diet is causing a nutrient deficiency