All the advice from the health magazines, the NHS and the various health charities is the same - we're encouraged to be active and get the recommended amount of exercise as it has a number of significant benefits - these include healthier bones, better sense of wellbeing, healthier heart, and so on.
But if we're aiming to be active, then it's important to make sure we're getting all the nutrients we need in our diet. So here on the blog I'm going to take a look at various important nutrients over the next while, with one post devoted to each. This week: calcium
Things like calcium, for instance. Low intake of calcium is linked to low bone mass and therefore a higher number of bone fractures.
Luckily, it's fairly easy to ensure a good amount of calcium in your diet - one of the most obvious sources being milk. But it's also found in nuts, sesame seeds and a few other foods too. It's extremely important to make sure you get the recommended amount of calcium and not getting wnough can lead to osteoporisis in later life.
Good bone health is one of the big reasons for staying active - and eating foods that contain calcium is just part of maintaining healthy bones. Making sure you're getting enough vitamin D is important too, since it's responsible for calcium absorption. While there may not be too much sun around at this time of year, the amount of sun we get the rest of the year should mean that there's enough vitamin D stored in the body for the winter - however you can also get vitamin D from a number of sources.
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