Lean Mass Better For Developing Bones In Young People

A child with leaner body mass, or muscle, builds bigger bones than a child who weighs the same but has a greater percentage of fat.

“There’s a little bit of controversy because weight itself has a positive influence on bone,” said researchers. “Heavier individuals tend to have more bone just to support their weight.”

The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies.

“A larger child is going to have larger bones just because he’s heavier,” they said. “But if you have two kids at the same weight, the one whose weight is dominated by fat mass is more likely to have smaller bones than the one whose weight is dominated by lean mass. Smaller bones are weaker than larger bones.”

“Kids with higher lean mass, or muscle, tended to have greater rates of change, and kids with higher fat mass tended to have lower rates of change.”

This new knowledge is one factor that can help the medical community in forming guidelines about diet and exercise to deal with health issues such as childhood obesity and the subsequent influence on adult disorders such as osteoporosis.