Being too thin can lead to fractures and premature aging! How to delay the onset age of osteoporosis? Do this during your peak bone mass period!

Busy young woman not paying attention to diet

Children face two problems: obesity and being too thin. Although there are many factors that contribute to childhood obesity, the most common one is that they rarely play outside. If children do not go out every day and just stay at home playing video games, they will naturally become fat as they get less exercise.

On the other hand, children's thinness is also related to their parents' economic situation. Poverty in single-parent families can cause children to be malnourished and may cause them to be underweight. The problem of the younger generation is that women are too thin. The BMI values ​​of women in their twenties have been declining since 1970. Although the decline has stopped recently, it still maintains a long-term trend of being thin.

The problem of being too thin among women in their twenties has also spread to women in their thirties, and in recent years even women in their forties have had the problem of being too thin. One of the reasons young women are too thin is excessive weight loss. Many people lack common sense about health and just want to lose weight blindly. Many people also have the wrong idea that "as long as I can lose weight, it's fine." In addition, busy working women often eat casually for their three meals, which is also one of the reasons why young women tend to be thin.

The control group for the young women was middle-aged men. Nowadays, there are more and more middle-aged men suffering from metabolic syndrome, the reasons include irregular meals, excessive picky eating and lack of exercise. Middle-aged men should pay attention to countermeasures for metabolic syndrome.

As for the elderly population, there is a big difference between the early elderly (over 65 years old and under 75 years old) and the later elderly. The early elderly have the most balanced diet among all generations. Many of them have three meals a day regularly, and many of them consume staple foods, main dishes, and side dishes in a balanced manner to maintain good nutrition.

However, many of these early elderly people believe that “after getting older, you have to eat coarse food,” which results in malnutrition.

The problem for the elderly in the later stages is being too thin and malnourished. Many elderly people live alone and cannot go out to buy groceries. It is also difficult for them to cook for themselves, so many of them cannot get enough nutrition.

Different generations face different health and nutritional problems, so corresponding countermeasures must be made according to different generations. However, the focus of today's health countermeasures is on preventing excessive obesity.

From a generational perspective, the obesity problem is concentrated among some children and middle-aged men. People of other age groups, however, need to pay attention to the problem of being too thin.

Excessive weight loss at a young age can lead to microcardiac hypoplasia

Mature women are more susceptible to osteoporosis. The so-called osteoporosis is a phenomenon in which bone density decreases rapidly due to a decrease in female hormones after menopause. Once bone density decreases, fractures become more likely.

The most effective way to prevent osteoporosis is to increase peak bone mass. Bone density reaches its peak between the ages of 20 and 30. If you can increase the level of peak bone mass at this time, you can then prevent the problem of bone density loss with aging. If the bone density is very high during the peak period, even if the bone density decreases later, the time to osteoporosis can be delayed. That is to say, the age of onset of osteoporosis can be delayed.

This concept also applies to muscles. I will introduce it in detail later. Sarcopenia is the problem of muscle loss, which is easy to occur in people who did not store muscle well when they were young.

Bones and muscles are inseparable, so it is important to exercise your muscles well while you are still young in your twenties and thirties. The way you live when you are young will have a great impact on your later years. Young women today lose weight too much, and their bone and muscle reserves seem to be insufficient. When young people get older, problems are likely to emerge one by one.

Moderate exercise for weight loss is not a bad thing in itself, but exercising without eating or dieting without exercising may cause nutritional deficiencies. Because the muscles and bones that should be stored when you are young will be lost due to this way of weight loss. The most important thing is to change your lifestyle while you are still young, avoid losing weight excessively, and supplement your nutrition.

Young people should develop awareness about nutrition. Although the lunches provided by the school are nutritionally balanced, school surveys have found that students' diets become very unbalanced during the winter and summer vacations. Although everyone often talks about "food education", the effect does not seem to be very obvious.

Children who are too thin and young women who are losing weight should pay special attention to the problem of malnutrition. Metabolic syndrome occurs in middle-aged men. If people of other generations are thin, they should eat more and pay attention to nutritional balance. This way, health risks will be reduced when you get older.

You can self-assess your muscle mass by circling your legs with your fingers

Although you can determine whether you are too thin by measuring your weight, it is more important to confirm your muscle mass.

The easiest way to confirm muscle mass is the "finger circle leg method". This method was invented by Professor Katsufumi Iijima of the Institute for Aging Society at the University of Tokyo.

Although the most important muscles are those in the back, the muscles in the lower limbs are the most frequently used in daily life, such as walking. The most representative method of measuring calf muscle mass is the "finger circle leg method".

Wrap your thumb and index finger around your calf. If your fingers cannot completely circle the fattest part of your calf, it means your calf is very muscular. If the gap is large, it means there is too little calf muscle.

If you lose weight due to malnutrition, you can clearly see with the naked eye that the calf muscles are reduced. By circling your calf with your fingers, you can tell whether the muscle mass in your calf has remained the same or decreased.

Those who want to accurately measure muscle mass can use a health measuring instrument, which estimates water and muscle mass based on the resistance ratio of a weak electric current. The "Skeletal Muscle Mass Index" (SMI) displayed on the instrument can tell the condition of skeletal muscles. So if you want to know your muscle mass, you can buy a fitness device that can measure SMI or go to a place that has such a device to measure it.

Unfortunately, there is no simple way to measure your bones yourself, and you can only go to a medical institution for examination and measurement. There is a bone density measuring device called DXA, which uses two weak radiations. By undergoing examination with this device, you can find out whether your bone density is consistent with your age. There is also an ultrasound examination method.

Muscle and bone quality are very important health indicators for people after middle age. It’s just that muscles and bones are something that are accumulated from a young age, so you should be careful not to be too thin when you are young.

Being too thin can easily lead to fractures

Being underweight can also increase the risk of fractures. If you have enough fat and muscle, they can act as a cushion when you fall. But for people who lack these "buffer materials", their bones will directly bear the impact force when they fall, so thin people have a higher risk of fractures.

Additionally, thin people are generally less nourished, so their bones may be more fragile. When there is no fat or muscle to cushion the fall and the bones themselves are fragile, they are easily broken.

A middle-aged or older man said, "Because I can't eat too much fat, I try not to eat meat in my diet." This man used to eat meat, but later changed his diet to mainly vegetables and fish. He was originally a bit fat, but after he stopped eating meat, he started to lose weight, and finally even his cheeks became sunken. After a while, he broke his hip in his thigh, which was probably due to lack of nutrition such as fat.

Although middle-aged and elderly people need to pay attention to the problem of metabolic syndrome, they still need some fat and sufficient meat intake to maintain health and physical strength. Seniors don’t have to worry too much about metabolic syndrome or eating too much fat. On the contrary, malnutrition has a greater impact on the brain and body health of the elderly.

Keeping thin will age you prematurely

In the field of geriatrics, the term "frailty" has recently become popular. Although it means weakness and aging, it mainly refers to the state of decline in the body's health functions. You can also think of it as the stage before you need long-term care services.

As people age, their health functions begin to decline. The disappearance of physical and mental "spare energy" is a symptom of the frailty of old age. Although health begins to decline at this time, there is no need for support or care in life. The healthy period and the old age frail period are collectively referred to as "healthy remaining life".

The next stage after the frailty stage of old age is the "disability stage". Due to the decline of health functions, physical and mental disorders occur, and support or care in life is needed at this time. Although the person has entered the "obstacle period" at this time, since he is still alive, his "remaining life" also includes this stage. The disability period can also be called "unhealthy remaining life".

Although it is important to determine whether a person has entered the frail stage of old age, before that, I would like to introduce three indicators of health. In order to understand what the state of frailty in old age refers to, we need to first define the so-called "healthy" state.

According to the ICF (International Classification of Functioning and Disabilities) published by WHO (World Health Organization), health focuses on three aspects: "life standard", "living standard" and "life standard".

"Standard of life" refers to the completeness of physical and mental functions. "Standard of living" refers to the functional integrity of life activities such as personal behavior, housework or work. "Life standards" refer to the full range of social functions such as family responsibilities, work, and participation in local social activities. At the same time, these three are also related to each other.

In the elderly frail stage, the three functions of "vitality standard", "living standard" and "standard of life" can be said to be in a state of overall lowness. Although it is not completely consistent with the ICF classification, we have created a 15-item test sheet in the three areas of "physical strength", "nutrition" and "social". In this test form, if more than four items are met, it will be defined as the frail stage of old age.

We used this survey form to survey elderly people aged 70 and above living at home in Kusatsu Town, Gunma Prefecture. Among them, 20% of males and 16% of females aged 70 to 74 were judged to be in the frail elderly stage. And the number of people over 85 years old has become very large. Fifty-five percent of men and sixty percent of women over the age of 85 are classified as being in the frail old age. We also found that the higher the score on the test form, the more people were later identified as needing long-term care.

This article is from the book "Japanese Medical Doctor Teaches You a New Dietary Revolution - Early Attack on Sarcopenia, Osteoporosis, and Brain Power Loss" by Excellent Culture