Seeing as we’ve chatted about skin and hair, I figured maybe we should finish off this body stuff with some info about bones.
We all take our bones for granted too. Unless we break one that is – then we realise that they are quite useful things. I’ve never broken a bone before – but I know a friend who did and he said it was not only sore – but wearing the plaster of Paris cast was a real pain in the butt.
Imagine if we did not have any bones – we’d be a puddle of skin, hair and guts flopping around on the floor. Seriously gross hey!
We are born with around 300 bones, but some of them fuse together as we grow and by the time we are all grown up we have 206 bones. Our bones keep growing until we are in our 20’s and by the time we hit our 30’s our bones have reached maximum density.
The longest bone in our bodies is the thigh bone – this is called the femur. The smallest bone is found in the middle ear. The staples (or stirrup) bone is only 2.8 millimetres long. That’s pretty small. Good job it’s attached to other bones and it can’t get lost!
Every single one of those 206 bones has a name too. Just imagine… if you wanted to study orthopaedics you’d have to learn all of them. Eish!
Like our skin, the human body’s bones are also constantly worn down and re-made, to the point where every 7 years we essentially have a new bone.
Hah! That’s an interesting fact. Next time my Gogo tells me I make her old bones tired – I can tell her that her bones are not so old after all!
Calcium is very important to keep our bones healthy. This means we need to drink milk and eat stuff like cheese, yoghurt and buttermilk. Believe it or not broccoli, kale, bok choy, almonds, figs, oranges and white beans are also great sources of calcium.
There’s a cool worksheet on how to make a skeleton out of paper on my website. If you are bored in the holidays – go check it out www.sibo.co.za .
Take care of your bones,
Sibo
……………………..
Cool interesting word for the week: Galvanize
Meaning: To shock or excite somebody into taking action.
Example: Sibo’s aunt was galvanized into eating more calcium rich food to help build up her bones after she broke her hip.