While joining my family in a beach resort, I was amazed as to how many people still find it too comfortable to expose their bodies under the scorching heat of the sun. I would have loved to ask them if they are under the protection of SP70. While I was under the nipa hut, it suddenly crossed my mind that I am among those who shields my body from the sun, just so not to get a tanner skin. And so what if I think this way? But come to think of it, how much sunlight am I really getting? Here is my routine for five weekdays.
I leave the house riding in the car at around 6 a.m. (unexposed to the sun’s rays, I enter our office and stay there for the next nine hours. And because I live 35 kilometers away from home, I usually intend to go home by 4:30 p.m.. With two hours travel (while inside my car), I am again shielded from the sun. I arrive home a little before 7 p.m., when the sun has set; and there I was at the beach too afraid of the sun’s rays to penetrate my skin.
One problem I am exposing myself to, is the possibility of lacking in vitamin D. This vitamin referred to as “Sunshine Vitamin” promotes normal bone and teeth development because it facilitates the absorption of calcium and phosphorus. The lack of vitamin D results in reduced intestinal absorption of the two minerals. Vitamin D deficiency is now becoming common as almost 1 billion people are diagnosed to have this deficiency. The saying the Asian people are not at risk for having vitamin D deficiency is now becoming a fallacy. Assuming that Asians at one point in their lives had been very much exposed to sunlight, there is a high tendency that when their skin eventually becomes dark, they start to hide themselves from the sun and has lesser sunlight exposure then. Now even if they continue to expose themselves to the sun, they already have reduced capacity to synthesize the vitamin because of darker skin. Moreover, though not common in all Asian countries, cities with high levels of air pollution predispose its people to lesser sun ray’s penetration as they may not obtain adequate UVB even if they do go out in the sun; while excessive sun exposure is certainly unwise, sunlight deficiency seems to be an ever-increasing problem.
If the your practice shielding from the sun continues, the other means of avoiding vitamin D deficiency is to ensure that your diet would meet the recommended amount of the vitamin. DOST-FNRI has set daily requirements to 5 ug for 10 to 49 years old Filipinos and 10 to 15 ug for those at the older age bracket.
Food sources of vitamin D include fortified foods like butter, margarine, milk, cheese, glandular organs, salmon, sardines, and egg yolk. Well these foods are not too hard to find, others might even think that these are all “poor man’s food,” nevertheless, they will protect you from devastating bone diseases in the future. Simple foods can help protect your bones.
(Write the author at wellbeing@mb.com.ph)
**http://www.mb.com.ph/node/201012
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