Broken bones: it doesn't have to be ‘Mum’s the word’

Please note, the following blog and video discuss Mother’s Day, which may be a sensitive topic for some readers.

Many people are shocked to hear that one in every two women over 50 will break a bone due to osteoporosis. The condition affects people of both sexes, but women are disproportionately affected due to the hormonal changes that take place during the menopause.

There’s a simple fact every woman should know: If mum has broken a hip from a slip, trip or fall, you have one of the strongest risk factors for breaking bones later yourself. Yet, there’s an enormous gap in public awareness.

So, for Mother’s Day this year (19 March), we ran a second campaign to promote our online risk checker. During our first campaign, launched for World Osteoporosis Day in October 2022, 55,000 people check their risk, with hundreds going on to receive a diagnosis after getting their results. But we wanted to reach even more people at risk, helping them to make positive changes for their bones.

For Mother’s Day, we asked mothers, grandmothers and daughters to have conversations about their bone health to find out more about their family history and possible risk factors. Conversations around bone health don’t just help to diagnose osteoporosis, they also help us assess our risk earlier so we can take action.

As part of the campaign, we hosted a pop-up event at Cabot Circus, a busy shopping centre in Bristol. We handed out flowers to passers-by to start a conversation about osteoporosis, half of which were fresh, and the other broken, to represent that one in two women over 50 will break a bone due to poor bone health.

We captured people’s responses in the following film.

Don’t worry, all participants walked away with a fresh bunch of flowers!

As a result of both campaigns, over 80,000 people have now checked their risk with our online tool! If you haven’t already, take our online risk checker and get a personalised report on your bone health in just five minutes.