A BONE TO PICK

Skeletal strength is all the rage. But is there anything you can really do to improve your internal scaffolding?

- Alice Gregory

For as long as I can remember, my mother—whom I resemble closely enough that strangers sometimes treat us like before-and-after photos—has narrated certain facts about herself in the first-person plural, joining us together in a small, unlucky demographic damned by extremely minor curses. We don't look good in red. We should never wear silver jewelry. One pronouncement surfaced more frequently than the others: We will get osteoporosis. Her mother had it, she would say, and so did her grandmother. Our bones were small, she'd explain. And you never really drank a lot of milk as a child. Not long ago, an unpleasant but minor stomach condition forced me onto a low dose of a steroid, whose side effects included the remote, theoretical possibility of decreased bone density. In an act of due diligence, my doctor ordered a DEXA scan, an imaging test used to measure bone mineral density and from it extrapolate one’s future fracture risk. I remember little about the actual X-ray, but I'll never forget the alarm on the face of the specialist charged with interpreting the results a few weeks later.

“You're 37?” he asked, sounding stricken.

All but two of my vertebrae were within the range of what is considered osteopenia, the clinical term for low bone density, often considered a precursor to osteoporosis. The other two were solidly osteoporotic.

Did I have any children, he wanted to know.

Yes, I told him. One.

He asked if I planned on having any more.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “Probably?”

In that case, he sighed, there was nothing to be done. Until I had birthed and weaned my hypothetical second (and definitely last, I assured him) child, I was not a candidate for any available medications currently on the market, which, like most drugs, have not been tested on pregnant women. He encouraged me to continue taking a calcium supplement and to incorporate strength training into my exercise routine. “Try not to fall,” he added.