Natural Way Health Blog

Multivitamins for Children

A good diet, plenty of fresh air and exercise plus lots of love and attention will generally keep your child healthy, bright and happy. But a good diet isn’t always easy to maintain in a child and assumes that your child enjoys eating leafy green foods and oily fish on a regular basis.

No-one would suggest that stuffing your child full of vitamin pills is the solution either, but a balanced diet topped up with a good quality multivitamin and essential fatty acids can give reassurance to parents that their children are avoiding any obvious nutritional deficiencies.

There is a no-nonsense, no-nasties multivitamin complex which contain the Government recommended levels of nutrients for children, without the unnecessary additives contained in many other children’s vitamin products. These are also genuinely sugar-free with no hidden extras, no aspartame, saccharine or other sweeteners – not even fructose, just the vitamins and minerals your child needs each day in a tiny, easy-to-swallow, all-vegetarian/vegan capsule.

The multivitamin complex is seriously formulated for long-term daily intake during the early years, the all-important pre- and post-pubescent transition and onwards into adulthood.

NOTE: This information is not intended to replace the guidance of a health practitioner. Consult your doctor if your child is already taking medication. Do not alter medication without the strict guidance of a doctor or qualified practitioner.

Children’s Multi Vitamin and Mineral products

There is a whole load of controversy around giving children a multi vitamin and mineral supplement. I remember as a child being given a small orange coloured and orange flavour tablet – haliborange from memory (it is a very different product today and not one we’d recommend) because that’s what my parents chose for us.

Today (50 years later) the world we live in and the food we eat is very different. We didn’t have supermarkets and we bought our fruit and vegetables from a green grocer who probably sourced produce from a local wholesale market – the food we ate was way better then than now. So good supplementation is even more critical.

We hope to provide some guidance on what to look for and we will make a couple of suggestions based upon our own research into the best products for your children. So what should you look for:

• the best multi vitamin products don’t come from high street stores
• mail order companies like Solgar and Viridian have a range of well formulated children’s products.
• a one a day tablet is unlikely to make the grade as the necessary components at the levels required mean that a one a day tablet is too big to swallow.
• a chewable form is often available – but taste is critical
• don’t expect them to be cheap – £7/months supply for a 3 year old is about the minimum we would suggest as a cut off.
• the larger the child the more they will need – for example a 5 year old will probably need double the amount a 3 year old will.

About RDA

The RDA is a bit of a misnomer. Required Daily Allowance suggests that that’s all you need to take. The RDA levels are based upon the amount of a particular vitamin to prevent vitamin deficiency disease. For example Scurvy is a disease of Vitamin C deficiency – the RDA for vitamin C is based upon the amount needed  to ward off scurvy. To be truly healthy much higher levels are often (not always beneficial) helpful. We would always suggest that you follow the instructions on the bottles and if you wish to increase beyond that level either see a qualified specialist who can advise or do your own research.

Are Supplements really needed

This is a good question and one that often comes up.

• The old mantra ‘you can get all you need from a varied diet’ is not strictly true any longer. If you look at the nutritional content of a peach 30 years ago you’d need to eat 3 peaches a day to get the Vitamin C you’d need. Taking the same fruit today you’d need to eat roughly 50 a day to get the same amount of vitamin C. So while the purists are correct in one way it is actually impractical in most cases.

• the UK’s pesticide and residue committee has concluded that most fruits and vegetables should be thoroughly washed before being eaten. Thorough washing means soaking broccoli florets for at least an hour before eating to reduce the chemicals ingested. Most people I know don’t have the time to wash every bit of fruit and vegetable they eat. As we eat fruit and vegetables we actually are consuming more and more chemicals. That’s not good.

• Organic fruit and vegetables is OK isn’t it. Yes and no. Yes organic fruit and vegetables are going to contain fewer chemicals but they are still sprayed its just controlled more closely and they use safer chemicals. Even if they used no chemicals at all the rain still washes chemical pollutants out of the air and the plants end up absorbing them – just not quite as much as when they spray them. For more reading around this subject I suggest Dr Steve Nugent’s book – how to survive on a  toxic planet?

What we recommend:

Viridian ViridiKid Multi mini capsules – 90 Veg Caps