Rickets and Education

Rickets and Education Rickets makes a comeback in the Bay area What are the implications for Educators?

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What are Rickets? • In short, Rickets are a disease caused by vitamin D deficiency that causes bowed legs, fractured bones, poor digestion, thick wrists and ankles, large head and belly, deformed spine and chest, painful inflamed joints, and poor overall growth. It tends to affect dark skinned people more because dark skin doesn’t react as strongly to sunshine as does lighter colored skin, so it produces less vitamin D.

Those most at risk • Children age 6 to 24 months old • Dark skinned people • Premature babies • Exclusively breast-fed babies

The history of rickets • 18th & 19th Century • 20th Century • Today

Rickets today It was believed by many that Rickets had been all but eradicated in this country because of modern nutrition. However, a recent article in the Chronicle has tracked new cases in the Bay area.

Treatment and Prevention • Rickets are treated and prevented with vitamin D • We get vitamin D in two different ways • Sunlight and food • Your skin produces vitamin D when it’s exposed to sunlight. Children in developing countries are more likely to spend time indoors, and use sunscreen when outdoors. Sunscreen blocks the rays that trigger the production of vitamin D. • Many foods today have been fortified with vitamin D, like milk and cereals. Vitamin D is also found in fish oils and egg yolks.

Rickets in your future classroom Rickets is rare, and you may never run into a student with it. But this next section will talk about what can be expected from the cases occurring in Oakland, and how schools and educators should prepare for these students.

Physical Aspect of Rickets As you saw at the beginning of the presentation rickets can cause exaggerated bowing of the legs, thick & large wrists and ankles, potbellies, abnormalities in their ribcage, larger heads, and stunted growth. These physical traits, if treated with vitamin D early enough, can somewhat normalize in time. If left untreated, history tells us that they have a good chance of passing before school age.

Typical rickets symptoms you may encounter as an educator • Rickets are painful, and when a child is in pain they’re distracted. • Rickets can cause restlessness and that relates to a student who needs help focusing. • Rickets don’t allow you to sleep very well. The pain and restlessness keeps young students up at night. • Rickets causes digestive problems, not only vitamin D absorption issues, but the bodies inability to digest food properly.

Rickets and Education