Got Milk? Or is it.... Got Pill?When I had my first child, I decided I would “choose my battles” as a parent. For example, I am concerned about health and safety issues, but when my daughter wore a pink striped shirt with green plaid pants, it was fine with me. 
Then I had my second child. At age three, Lulu emerged from her room in the middle of winter ready to attend pre-school wearing a tutu, mardi gras beads and not much else. We had to redefine our unstructured dress code to at least be “weather appropriate”. Problem solved. At least for now.
Enter the issue of nutrition and calcium. When my daughters’ friends come over for lunch, I offer them milk or water for their beverage. I am startled by how many kids shout out, “I don’t like milk. Don’t you have any juice? “ Sorry kid, but this house is dry. No juice for you.
The wonderful folks at Mamapedia reminded me that June is National Dairy Month. I learned that up to 90 percent of peak bone mass is acquired by age 18 in girls and by age 20 in boys, which makes childhood the only time to "invest" in bone health. Sadly, today’s girls are drinking less milk and getting less calcium than their mothers did. In fact, most children don’t get the required 1300 mg of calcium daily to build a lifetime of strong bones. But this brings me back to a conundrum of motherhood. Do I choose the battle of milk drinking or do I just give them a calcium supplement? Was I going to tell my kids they could pop a pill, and that it didn’t matter what they ate? Was I setting them up for failure in life down the road, or was I spending too much time thinking about future problems that might not even exist? Was I losing all sense of reality over a pink animal-shaped chewable pill? It was easy with our oldest daughter, Hazel. Hazel is a world class consumer of dairy products. Then along came tutu-toting Lulu. She transitioned to cow’s milk and seemed fine until she was three, when she began complaining of constant stomach aches. All my friends said she was lactose intolerant and she would never drink milk. I needed more facts. Long story short, Lulu appears to have a problem digesting the fat in milk, so she switched to soy milk. We found a lower sugar vanilla soy milk at Costco in aseptic packaging, and she drank that for years. But I began to worry about too much soy in her diet. Soy milk contains phytoestrogens which are a form of estrogen. Our terrific pediatrician suggested we try her with milk once a year and see if her stomach still hurt. After all, her issue was with milk fat, not the milk itself. Always game for a contest, Lulu tried fat free milk each year until age 7. Finally, she drank that glass of milk and nothing hurt! She now takes a probiotic every day to give her digestive system some extra healthy bacteria. She enjoys yogurt and cheese, and drinks her fat free milk. She still can’t eat full fat ice cream and baked goods with lots of butter, but she can now get enough calcium in her food consumption Problem solved? Some experts argue that cow’s milk is bad for humans and we should drinking almond and rice milk. They say cow’s milk has negative side effects such as excess mucus production. It’s hard to know what to do. So we forge ahead with what we believe is best for our family. In this case, it’s milk products that are organic, or at least have no rBst hormones added. But why work so hard? I already give Lulu a probiotic pill, so why not just give her a calcium pill? Lulu understands the probiotic pill is temporary, as her digestive system matures. But we are trying to teach her that dairy product consumption can give her a lifetime of good heath. We realize there are days when all our kids don’t get enough calcium in their diet, especially as they get older and eat away from home more often. Perhaps that daily calcium supplement was still necessary within the framework of dairy product consumption. But what about that life lesson of popping a pill to solve the problem? We found our compromise. We all take a calcium pill and we talk about how the pill is a supplement for calcium, not a replacement for healthy eating. We teach our children to make good food choices whenever possible, and educate them in age appropriate ways that milk, cheese, and yogurt make their bodies strong so they can play harder and jump higher. Especially when they are dancing in pink tutu’s and mardi gras beads in the middle of winter.
Return from Calcium Supplements to the Best Calcium Supplement |
