Daily HealthBeat Tip

More soda, less milk

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I�m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Teen-age girls need calcium for strong bones, and milk has calcium. So what are they drinking more of?

Ruth Striegel-Moore of Wesleyan University in Connecticut looked at food diaries kept by close to 2,400 girls from the ages of 9 or 10 through age 19. The National Institutes of Health supported her study in The Journal of Pediatrics.

Striegel-Moore says that, at the end, girls were drinking about 25 percent less milk and almost three times more soda. Soda was their No. 1 drink.

Striegel-Moore says they were missing milk�s chance to help them get calcium:

"It contributes to bone growth. And once girls have reached maturity, they no longer develop new bone. So if you are not building enough bone, you have less bone, basically, for the rest of your life." (12 seconds)

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: April 14, 2006

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