Female: The Gavrilos boys are very active and need all the calcium they can get in order to build and maintain strong bones. Their sisters are still pretty young, but they’re also busy little girls. Being physically active and getting enough calcium will be essential for these children throughout their lives, but it’s most important in the developing years when their bones are growing fastest. Why? Because nearly 90% of their bone mass will be created by age 17, and the calcium content of their bones will peak by about age 21. After that, consuming calcium helps prevent bone loss, but the “bone bank” will no longer accept new deposits. So if their account isn’t brimming with calcium, they may be more likely to suffer fractures now, and to develop osteoporosis, a brittle bone disease, later in life. As some experts say, osteoporosis is “a pediatric disease with geriatric consequences.” Luckily, we know part of the solution is simple. Michael Zemel: Children need two to three servings of milk or dairy foods to meet their calcium requirements. Younger children closer to two servings, older children needing three or more servings of dairy products a day. Female: It’s called the “Three-a-Day of Dairy for Stronger Bones Plan” and it’s supported by the American Academy of Pediatrics and other major health organizations. James and Angela are teaching their four children to count to three. Angela Gavrilos: They have dairy in the morning with breakfast. They get their milk at school with their lunch. And then when they come home, they have cheese or yogurt, and in the evening they have milk with their dinner. Female: And “do as I say, not as I do” does not work here. If you want your kids to down their dairy products, you’ve got to show them how. Angela knows she won’t get away with much in her home. Angela Gavrilos: There’s always eight little eyes looking at me. So if something’s in my mouth they’re going to find out. So I have to watch what I eat, because they do, they watch everything, they watch where you’re going, they know you’re going for the pantry and they know what’s in there and they want a part of it too! So, we’re very conscious of what we eat and we try, we try, we try to be good. Robert Heaney: As the kids grow older we see that in fact they’ve picked up our habits and our ways of doing things. They may have seemed to push against us for a while, but in the final analysis, they end up eating what we eat, drinking what we drink, and smoking if we smoke or not if we don’t as the case may be. And so the best way to ensure a life long habit of getting an adequate calcium intake is to model that as the parent. Female: Eating dairy foods such as milk, cheese and yogurt is the easiest way to meet calcium needs. Because these foods also provide several other essential nutrients, their intake improves the overall nutritional quality of a child’s diet. Nutritionally speaking, a can of soda simply doesn’t compare to a glass of milk. Rober Murray: As children get older, you move them over to skim milk, you know, a similar size serving will be less than 150 calories, but it’s, again, nutrient-dense foods as opposed to a kind of single-serving sugar foods and I think that is a problem for kids. Female: And research shows that eating dairy foods does more than just boost bone health. Michael Zemel: Increasing dairy product consumption or maintaining recommended levels of dairy product consumption, let’s say three servings of dairy a day, it can be an important player in helping a child control his or her weight and his or her body fat. Female: That’s another strong argument for including an extra glass of milk, a handful of cheese squares, or a cup of yogurt in your child’s diet. Get them up to three-a-day of dairy, and rest easy. Angela Gavrilos: The three dairy a day, I think, is very simple. If they just have one thing with each meal and a dairy snack, then you’re done!