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Of the 75 million people diagnosed with osteoporosis every year, 80% are women. When fitness Instagrammer Nathalie Lennon was diagnosed at 23 with osteopenia – pre-osteoporosis – she decided it was time to take care of her bones. Ahead of International Osteoporosis Awareness Day on 20th October, she’s urging all young women to do the same, writes Niamh O’Donoghue.
One of my best party tricks is obnoxiously popping every finger hinge and my wrists. It’s more of a crack than ‘pop’ really, and it garners a response of disgust every time. But lately, it’s made me think more consciously about my bones in general. (If you’re reading this and thinking “that girl will have arthritis in no time”, that myth has been truly busted).
When was the last time you thought about your bone health? Our skeletons carry us around 24-hours a day, seven days a week. To work, to the gym, to the childminder, out dancing, climbing mountains. We can live without a kidney, thyroid or even a limb, but we can’t ever live without our skeleton. And though we might not think about skeletal diseases such as osteoporosis day-to-day, knowing our bones begin to degenerate by 1% every year past the age of thirty is enough to give it some thought early on.
When you’re young and full of energy, it’s easy to forget that one day, the bones carrying you around will age too. At 24, personal trainer and fitness Instagrammer Nathalie Lennon (@Nat_tilly) should have been working towards her peak. Instead, continued diet-restriction and over-exercising drove her to exhaustion and wreaked havoc on her body from the inside out. Her story should come as a warning for young women to be mindful of bone health.
“I decided to do a physique competition in October 2016. It began as a box-ticking exercise for me, but turned into something far greater. I developed restrictive tendencies as a result of cutting body fat, which stayed with me long after the competition had ended,” Nathalie tells me while sipping a coffee, looking the picture of health.
“I didn’t realise how controlling I was being over everything at the time. Looking back, I think people around me could see it, but I was so consumed by it and loving it; seeing my body change, tracking my macros and micros. That’s when things started to go skew-ways, and I realised I was being far too controlling and obsessive over wanting to change my body again and again.”
Throughout her training journey, Nathalie amassed a following of more than 56,000 on Instagram and regularly posted body updates, workouts and food plans. Physically, she was what could be considered as the “ideal” body type: slim, toned, athletic. Inside, however, painted a very different picture. “That’s the problem with Instagram,” she says. “People can look amazing but be at their lowest or sickest inside. I knew I wasn’t well, but in the photos I shared I just hid this by wearing bigger clothes or covering up more.”
“I wasn’t happy; I looked and felt gaunt. I was a personal trainer speaking about health and wellness on Instagram, and I am the opposite. That’s when I said it was time to make a change. I spoke to my family who were very supportive and happy that the penny had finally dropped.”
In need of physical and emotional support, Nathalie visited a dietician and had a Tanita scale test; a near-accurate reading of how dense your bones are. The test, as well as a considered examination of her diet, confirmed that she had developed Osteopenia, also known as early onset Osteoporosis (and it could have caused a bone-break during a routine workout).
Osteoporosis is a bone disease that occurs when the body loses too much bone, makes too little bone, or both. As a result, bones become weak and may break from a fall or, in serious cases, from sneezing or minor bumps. It affects approximately 200 million women worldwide, 22 million of which are in Europe (compared to 5.5 million men). And every three seconds, someone breaks a bone as a result of an Osteo-related break.
Signs and symptoms
According to the Mind Your Bones Campaign, an initiative set up by the Cappagh Hospital Foundation and supported by The National Dairy Council, a calcium-rich diet is the easiest way to protect bones from degeneration. At the time of diagnosis, Nathalie had cut dairy out of her diet completely.
“It never occurred to me that I could be damaging my skeleton,” she says. “In fact, I never thought about it because I was too focused on my reflection. I didn’t intentionally cut dairy out of my diet at the time but I was following a strict food plan that didn’t include dairy. I should have noticed these things and known to include dairy.”
The majority of women experience symptoms much later in life when the disease has already rooted itself deep in their bones. For Nathalie, however, her body gave her small signs that threw her off-kilter; she described her symptoms as a dull ache she’d never felt before around her ankles, knees, elbows and shoulders.
“The dietician attributed it to not eating enough food and not getting enough calcium. I now try to get three-of-five of the recommended servings of dairy every day. “I can 110% say that if I didn’t see a dietician and hear “your bone density has fallen,” I never would have thought about dairy or calcium or bone health. At all.”
It’s recommended that adults get between 1,000 and 1,200 milligrams of calcium per day and between 1,200 and 1,500 milligrams per day for teenagers.
Instagram guilt
Nathalie spends a considerable amount of time filming and editing workout videos, preparing healthy meals and updating her followers with progression pictures; all while maintaining a 9-5 job as a personal trainer. You can really see the effort she puts into her work and herself with a quick scroll on her feed. But following her diagnosis, she tells me how she was overcome with guilt for telling her 50K+ followers potentially damaging information.
It spurred a public apology to her followers (and to her own body), and a commitment to be better equipped with the right information. She has since enrolled in a three-year degree in nutritional therapy at the Irish Institute of Health and Nutrition in Bray.
“My heart dropped when I was told about my bone health, and I instantly felt a wall of guilt because I was trying to promote a healthy lifestyle; in reality, I was doing the opposite. I felt afraid, too, because fitness is my job and I could easily break a bone and not be able to work,” she says.
For Nathalie, Instagram has become a place of support and championing, where before it was a melting-pot of ill-information and bad dieting. This year, she joined the Mind Your Bones Campaign to help women and men start their fitness journey the right way. Nathalie’s before and after images speak for themselves and raise questions about how healthy these competitions are for long-term health.
“When I started out I was definitely more easily influenced by what I saw online. Everything was based on looking amazing, not feeling amazing. I’m trying to change that by sharing my story and being part of the Mind Your Bones campaign. I think the fitness industry right now – by the fault of social media – is sending people down the wrong path. Ultimately, it’s important to realise that it’s not only the elderly that need to look after their bone health, but it is just as important for younger generations too”.
We leave our conversation there and Nathalie – a strong-willed and strong-minded woman – heads for a dance class. This time, for the pure joy of it.
Ahead of World Osteoporosis Day tomorrow, Saturday, October 20th, here are four ways women can prevent early on-set Osteoporosis:
For more information on osteoporosis and bone health, visit irishosteoporosis.ie and mindyourbones.ie.