Do calcium supplements help stave off baby boomer bone loss? Who knows? The one thing we do know, absolutely, positively, beyond the shadow of a federally financed doubt, is that an adolescent girl's calcium consumption, or the lack thereof, is a critical factor in whether she'll develop osteoporosis later in life.

According to doctors Lisa Hark and Darwin Deen, co-authors of the excellent, encyclopedic Nutrition For Life, ”children aged between 9 and 18 years…need much more calcium in their diets than younger children or adults in order to fuel bone development during their growth spurt.”

But a new study in the Journal of Pediatrics shows that at the very age when girls should be upping their calcium intake to accumulate peak bone mass, they start to develop a preference for soda over milk. The study followed more than 2,300 girls from the age of 9 to 18, and found that over the course of the study their milk consumption decreased by more than 25%, while soda consumption tripled.

The Annie Leibovitz-lensed “Got Milk?” campaign has been trying for more than a decade to give the milk moustache some mystique. Teenage girls, apparently unmoved by the sight of a milk-mustachio'd Britney Spears, remain convinced that things go better with Coke.

Milk isn't the only good source of calcium, of course, and some people, such as the dairy debunkers at notmilk.com, insist that milk isn't good for us at all.

So, what are some of the best non-dairy sources of calcium? You might as well call it the Top Ten Foods That Teens Are Least Likely to Eat: dark leafy greens such as kale, spinach, collards, turnip and mustard greens, as well as bok choy, broccoli, tofu, canned sardines and salmon.

If only Annie Leibovitz could find a way to make sardines and spinach sexy.

Image credit: National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences