Extreme diet in 20s causes osteoporosis later
By Song Sang-ho
Finally, the college scholastic ability test is over. High school seniors in the country now have time to enjoy their life, but many of them have a critical plan to execute — it’s the time when students, especially girls, start a diet, which they have delayed until “after the life-determining college test.”
However, there are a few things that you should pay extra attention to. The health of your joints in your 40s and 50s is determined in your 20s.
A sudden diet in adolescence can damage joints. Bone density, which is directly related with bone health, reaches its peak in people’s 20s and 30s and gradually reduces afterwards. Hence, they may be exposed to the risk of osteoporosis unless you pull the bone density up when you are young. Women should take special heed as they can suffer bone loss after menopause.
The 20s is the most appropriate time to increase the bone density. Unbalanced nutrition caused by diet at this time can weaken bones. The low bone density usually leads to osteoporosis, a disease caused by calcium depletion in the bones. When the body feels undernourished it makes up for the deficiency with the calcium stored in the bones, and that causes holes in them. Many people perform a “one-food diet,” eating only one kind of food to lose weight, but this causes undernourishment and calcium loss, increasing the risk of osteoporosis.
According to a 2009 survey by eight university hospitals in the country, which measured bone density of 2,228 women who had not been diagnosed with osteoporosis, those in their 20s came up with 1.135 grams per square centimeters (g/cm2) of the bone density while those in their 30s presented with 1.176g/cm2, and those in their 40s, 1.147g/cm2. The results were contrary to the medical theory — those in their 20s presented the lowest bone density compared with the other two age brackets. It is assumed that the diet of the young ladies in this study produced such a result.
Once the bone density decreases, it is difficult to get it back. It is good to control weight, but people should make sure that you take sufficient calcium. If you are worried about the side effect of immoderate diet — the osteoporosis in your middle years — you should avoid the so-called starving diet and lose weight by doing aerobic exercise to have healthy bones in the future.
To avoid the side effects of diet, people are recommended to lose between 0.5 to 2 kilograms per month and 6 to 24 kilograms per year, depending on the degree of obesity. This is because cells easily get larger in size to store fat but it takes more time for them to get smaller again.
For the past few years, high school seniors did nothing but sat and studied. Now, they should look after their joints. If they feel and leave the pain in the waist or the groin, it can develop into herniated lumbar disc or scoliosis, where spine, which is supposed to be in the center of the body, is deformed sideways.
As they lack exercise, high school seniors are likely to have weak muscles around the joints. Hence, heavy exercise and diet can easily harm them.
Currently, “Girls’ Generation Diet” and “Kim Shin-young Diet,” mimicking celebrities who lost weight, seem to be very popular. However, people should know that they have lost weight under the guidance of professional trainers. If people don’t care about their joints while young, they will definitely suffer from joint-related diseases in their middle years. If people are thinking of going on a diet for this coming winter, they need to first find the right exercises and plan the right diet.
The writer is the president of Wellton Bone & Joint Hospital in Seoul.