noun

• A disease of children caused by vitamin D deficiency, characterized by imperfect calcification, softening, and distortion of the bones typically resulting in bow legs.

  ‘To absorb calcium, the body needs adequate vitamin D. Lack of either can cause bone diseases such as rickets in children and osteoporosis in older people.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘Its founder, Joseph Pilates, was born in Dusseldorf in 1880 and despite being a rather sickly child who suffered from rickets, asthma and rheumatic fever, he lived to the age of 87.’
  • ‘Exclusively breastfed infants are at increased risk of vitamin D deficiency and rickets.’
  • ‘Bowleggedness beyond the age of 2 or bowleggedness that only occurs in one leg but not the other can be the sign of a larger problem, such as rickets or Blount disease.’
  • ‘Renal tubular defects result in a loss of calcium and phosphate in the urine leading to children with deficient mineralization of growing bone and rickets.’