Welcome to dairy.com.au

National Healthy Bones Week has been a national joint initiative between Dairy Australia and Osteoporosis Australia for the past 14 years, highlighting the important role of dairy in the development and maintenance of healthy bones and prevention of osteoporosis.

This year, National Healthy Bones Week focused on the benefits of consuming dairy for school lunches for primary school aged kids.

Improving children’s intake of calcium–rich foods, such as dairy foods, helps to support healthy bone development and maximize peak bone mass.

Dairy Australia and Osteoporosis Australia put a call out to primary school students to nominate ‘Australia’s best bone-building school canteen.’

Click here for details on this year's winners.

Are you looking after your bones?

Osteoporosis is a global epidemic affecting more than 150 million people worldwide and 2 million people here in Australia. It is estimated that osteoporosis affects one in two women and one in three men over the age of 60.

What you can do now to prevent osteoporosis later in life

- Make sure that you eat enough dairy to get the calcium you need every day. Choose milk instead of soft drinks and a tub of yogurt instead of a pack of chips. Eating enough calcium-rich foods is essential throughout life to help maintain strong bones and to help slow down the natural bone loss that occurs when you get older.

- Dairy foods, such as milk, cheese and yogurt, are the rishest and most reliable sources of calcium.

- Calcium-rich foods also contain a package of other important bone-building nutrients (such as protein, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium and zinc) which are needed to build bones.

According to the last National Nutrition Survey, more than one in two Australian children and women fell short of the old recommendation for calcium. Older women in particular need to be careful to consume enough calcium as almost four in five over 65 years failed to meet their calcium requirement at the lower, previously recommended level.

The National Health and Medical Research Council has announced new recommendations for the level of intake of various nutrients in the Australian diet. For calcium, a nutrient essential for strong bones and teeth, the recommended dietary intake has increase for all Australians over the age of nine years.

The new calcium guidelines for adolescents and adults are between 1,000mg and 1,300mg calcium per day, depending on age and gender – about 300mg per day higher than the old (1991) values.

Recommended dietary intakes (RDIs) are the average daily dietary intake levels that are sufficient to meet the nutrient requirements of nearly all (97-98 per cent) healthy people in a particular life stage and gender group. The RDIs can be used as a goal for individual intake and a usual intake at or above this level has a low chance of being inadequate.

The new recommended dietary intakes are based on a lengthy review by the National Health and Medical Research Council. The guidelines were last reviewed in 1991.

Back to top ^