Dairy-free diets posing risk to bone health among young, charity warns

Fuelled by social media, the clean eating trend has surged in popularity in recent years
Fuelled by social media, the clean eating trend has surged in popularity in recent years

Young people who diet by cutting out dairy products face bad bone health later in life, according to a charity.

A National Osteoporosis Society survey found a fifth of under-25s are cutting out or reducing dairy in their diet.

Fuelled by social media, the clean eating trend has surged in popularity in recent years, with some advocates achieving celebrity status with hundreds of thousands of followers.

However the charity warned that restrictive diets among younger generations will lead to widespread health issues in later life.

Dairy is an important source of calcium, vital in building bone strength when people are young.

Charity adviser Professor Susan Lanham-New said: "By the time we get into our late twenties it is too late to reverse the damage caused by nutrient deficiencies.

"Without urgent action being taken to encourage young adults to incorporate all food groups into their diets and avoid clean eating regimes, we are facing a future where broken bones will become the norm.

"Osteoporosis is a painful and debilitating condition and young adults have just one chance to build strong bones."

The charity surveyed 2,000 adults, including 239 under the age of 25 and 339 aged 25-35.

Pressure

The NOS campaign, A Message to My Younger Self, is being supported by nutrition expert and skincare guru Liz Earle.

She said: "When I was growing up, my meals weren't photographed and shared on social media.

"The pressure young women are under to match what their idols on Instagram are eating is really high."

A spokesperson for the British Nutrition Foundation pointed out that it wasn't the lack of dairy that led to poor bone health, but rather a failure to replace it with alternative sources of calcium like leafy vegetables and fish with edible bones.

"While it’s not necessarily dangerous to cut out dairy from your diet it's important to ensure you get enough calcium from other sources," they said.

"Dairy tends to make the biggest contribution to our calcium intakes and so this needs to be replaced by other sources such as bread, cereal, canned fish, nuts, seeds and leafy green vegetables as well as choosing dairy alternatives that are fortified with calcium."