Like many Idahoans, you may not be getting enough calcium to build and maintain strong bones. Now Idaho extension educators are on a mission to help us all bone up.

Kathy Schlund's third-grade class put a few chicken bones in vinegar and a few more in water. Then they waited.

In two weeks, the vinegar had drawn calcium out of the bones. The children could bend them in half.

"They were impressed with what happens if your body does not get enough calcium," says Schlund of Twin Falls' Harrison Elementary School. "Your bones become weak and pliable."

In Idaho Falls, retiree Dorothy McKelley was equally impressed--but by a label-reading exercise at the grocery store. "Nothing I am eating has any calcium in it!" reported the shocked McKelley. "I've been getting a third of the calcium I should have been getting."

Across Idaho and across age groups, University of Idaho extension faculty are taking their urgent message. "There is a calcium crisis in the U.S.," says extension nutrition specialist Martha Raidl, who led development of the pilot curriculum now being offered from elementary schools to senior citizens' centers. "People of all ages are not getting enough calcium."

Bone--a living, growing tissue--is made up primarily of a soft protein framework and the mineral calcium phosphate. Until people reach their mid-20s, the skeleton's bone "bank" builds, relying heavily on calcium intake. After age 30, the skeleton continues to remove old bone cells and add new bone cells, but withdrawals exceed deposits.

Children and teens have the best opportunity to build defenses against osteoporosis, but instead of drinking milk, they're swigging fruit-flavored drinks and soda pops. "Kids are consuming twice as much soda as they are milk," says Raidl. "That's a complete switch from the 1970s, when they were drinking twice as much milk as soda." The result: nine out of 10 teenage girls and seven out of 10 teenage boys are not meeting their dietary calcium requirements.

But many adults are also falling short in providing their bodies with daily calcium to rebuild and replace worn bone cells. "There's a common misconception among adults that, just because they've stopped growing, they don't need calcium in their diets," Raidl says. "But they need a constant supply."

The National Institutes of Health's osteoporosis research center estimates that 10 million Americans already have osteoporosis and 18 million more have low bone mass, placing them at increased risk for the disease. Indeed, the National Osteoporosis Foundation estimates one in two women and one in eight men over 50 will have an osteoporosis-related fracture in their lifetime.

At the University of Idaho, statewide and county extension nutrition faculty hope to reduce those statistics. In their pilot classes, they are comparing the impacts of various teaching strategies: lectures, videotapes, food-intake records, supermarket field trips, classroom demonstrations, and sinking their students' teeth into calcium-rich snacks. Once the pilot classes are completed, they will amend the curriculum to include only the most effective strategies, then offer a series of classes around the state.

Extension educator Rhea Lanting is confident she's made a difference with Schlund's students. "They all had stories to tell me about what they'd eaten that's high in calcium," she says. And they know which bones are which: they've taken turns labeling their bodies with sticky notes.

Lanting is also making a difference with the children's parents. After Schlund's third-graders went home and raved about Lanting's "food guide pyramid" snack that piled yogurt, bananas, and nuts on top of graham crackers, two parents called up and said, "Wow, what was that treat the kids made in class?"

In Idaho Falls, McKelley is now buying calcium-fortified frozen yogurt, orange juice, and bran bread. She calls Barbara Petty's extension class "really enlightening" and says "it's well worth anyone taking the time."

Petty--who expected 20 participants in October and got 54--says adults are willing to change their eating habits if they can be convinced that the end results of not changing will be more painful than making the change itself. Many of Petty's clients don't need much convincing: they have already been diagnosed with osteoporosis.

In Adams County, extension nutrition program adviser Vickie Freeman took the calcium curriculum to seventh-graders at Council High School in February. "They loved it," she says--loved discovering that cheese sticks, chocolate milk, and calcium-fortified nutrition bars are solid, bone-building choices and loved buying the new calcium-rich snacks the school added to its offerings in response to the curriculum.

"We could go in there and lecture," says Kris Spain, extension nutrition program coordinator in the Treasure Valley, "but it's much more effective when the client becomes a part of the education process. When we say, ÔLet's look at what you usually eat, let's read some labels, let's make a snack,' that's how learning happens."