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by author Dr. Joey Shulman
On a recent outing with a few of my friends, the conversation turned to supplementing children with a multivitamin. One of my friends commented that she felt overwhelmed and confused about what to give to her children and what to avoid. Another friend added that she is basically giving her small children and teenagers the same supplements because she doesn’t know what else to give them. To shed light on this confusion, I decided to give my luncheon ladies a little lesson in supplementing 101. To supplement your child with a multivitamin or not to supplement, that is the question. The necessity of adding a daily multivitamin to your child’s diet is a hotly debated topic in the medical world. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), giving a child a daily multivitamin is only necessary if his or her pediatrician recommends one. The reasoning behind this is that, because a majority of foods are now fortified, additional mineral or vitamin support is not necessary. The AAP feels children should only be supplemented if they are extremely picky eaters, have signs of a specific deficiency, or are strictly vegetarian. Set a Safety Net On the flipside, other experts feel providing a child with a daily multivitamin is a good way to fill nutritional gaps in a child’s nutritional intake. While not a replacement for healthy eating, multivitamins act as a nutritional safety net for children, ensuring optimal growth and brain development. I am among those natural health practitioners who believe that supplementing a child with a daily multivitamin is necessary today. Because our children are bombarded with toxins (herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides), enriched foods, fast foods, foods grown in depleted soil, and for most Canadians, a lack of sunshine in winter, supplementing with a daily multivitamin is certainly warranted. The Vitamin Relief USA® distributes daily vitamins free of charge to poor and homeless children in the United States. Since August 1999, this program has targeted children who are at risk for nutritional deficiencies that can impair brain function, stunt growth, create chronic illness, and even increase aggressive behaviour. Through this program, chewable multivitamins are shipped to a variety of organizations in 39 states serving over 14,000 at-risk children in over 550 locations. Teachers, parents, and other organizational staff report children achieve higher grades, behave better, feel better about themselves, require fewer visits to the doctor, and have higher school attendance when taking a daily multivitamin. For more information, visit vitaminrelief.org. Supplement at Different Stages As children grow and change from stage to stage, their nutritional requirements and mineral and vitamin demands vary. Natural health companies often produce specially \formulated multivitamins and other supplements to cater to the ever-changing nutritional requirements of youth. For example, some children can swallow pills or capsules, while others rely on chewable or liquid form. Using age-appropriate formulations can make a difference to a child’s health and well-being and acknowledges their different growth patterns. Read on to discover which type of supplement is right for your child. Infants: In the first 12 months of life, infants require either breast milk or formula. There is some debate about whether it is necessary to supplement a breastfed baby with vitamin D. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, “All infants, including those who are exclusively breastfed, should have a minimum intake of 200 IU of vitamin D per day beginning during the first two months of life because adequate sunlight exposure (which facilitates vitamin D production) is not easily determined for any given individual infant.” In contrast, the La Leche League International stance on vitamin D supplementation in infants suggests that exclusively breastfed, healthy, full-term infants from birth to six months who have adequate exposure to sunlight are not at risk for developing vitamin D deficiency or rickets, which occurs because of a deficiency in sunlight exposure, not because of a deficiency in human milk.
Dr. Joey Shulman is author of The Natural Makeover Diet: 4 Steps to Inner Health and Outer Beauty (Wiley, 2006). For more information, please visit drjoey.com. Source: alive #286, August 2006 |
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