Strong bones are integral to good health, and nutrition plays a pivotal role in keeping them that way. Here’s everything you need to know to protect the health of your skeleton for years to come.

Nutrition plays an integral part in maintaining bone health throughout our lives. For instance, what our mothers ate while pregnant will have an effect on our own eventual bone mass as adults.

As children, our bones are rapidly developing. If we break something, no worries – just like Plastic Man! (Good thing considering all the times we fall from monkey bars.) If something does break though, don’t fret: just patch back together like magic.

By 18 to 19 years of age, most individuals have reached about 95% of their peak bone mass. We may still continue building some new bone in our 20s.

However, by age 30, our body stops making new “bone deposits”. At that point, withdrawals start occurring.

Here I present both bad and good news.

Bad news: Your bone density will decrease After age forty, American adults typically lose around 0.5% of bone mass annually – leading to low bone mineral density and eventual osteoporosis.

Osteoporosis fractures are more prevalent than heart attacks, strokes and breast cancer combined – at least one-third of women and one-fifth of men will experience an osteoporotic fracture during their lives.

Osteoporosis has gained the title “the silent thief”, due to the absence of symptoms as the disease advances over time.

Many older adults are unaware of their weak bones until a fall occurs, although women typically lose considerable bone mass during menopause when bone-protective hormone levels decrease drastically.

And if you’re an older individual and break a bone, your risk of mortality increases drastically.