Kids Supplements

Top Vitamins and Minerals for Kids

In the alphabet soup of vitamins and minerals, a few stand out as critical for growing kids.

• Vitamin A promotes normal growth and development; tissue and bone repair; and healthy skin, eyes, and immune responses. Good sources include milk, cheese, eggs, and yellow-to-orange vegetables like carrots, yams, and squash.
• Vitamin Bs. The family of B vitamins — B2, B3, B6, and B12 — aid metabolism, energy production, and healthy circulatory and nervous systems. Good sources include meat, chicken, fish, nuts, eggs, milk, cheese, beans, and soybeans.
• promotes healthy muscles, connective tissue, and skin. Good sources include citrus fruit, strawberries, kiwi, tomatoes, and green vegetables like broccoli.
• promotes bone and tooth formation and helps the body absorb calcium. Good sources include milk and fatty fish like salmon and mackerel. The best source of vitamin D is sunlight.
• Calcium helps build strong bones as a child grows. Good sources include milk, cheese, yogurt, tofu, and calcium-fortified orange juice.
• Iron builds muscle and is essential to healthy red blood cells. Iron deficiency is a risk in adolescence, especially for girls once they begin to menstruate. Good sources include beef and other red meats, turkey, pork, spinach, beans, and prunes.

Megavitamins — large doses of vitamins — aren’t a good idea for children. The fat-soluble vitamins (vitamins A, D, E, and K) can be toxic if kids get too much of them. Ditto with iron. Your kids can get too much of a good thing.

Look to Fresh Foods for the Best Vitamins

Healthy kids get their best start from what you put in your grocery cart.

Good nutrition starts by serving a wide variety of whole, fresh foods as much as possible.

That’s far better than serving up fast food or convenience food — and hoping that taking a kids’ vitamin will undo any nutritional no-no’s.

You’ll find the most vitamins and minerals in foods high in carbohydrates and proteins (rather than fats).

By far, the most high-vitamin foods of all are fresh fruits and vegetables.

To give kids more vitamins, aim for more variety — not simply more food.

Twice as many kids today are overweight than just 2 decades ago, so use kid-sized food portions.

Which are one-quarter to one-third the size of adult portions.

Spread the variety of foods into several small meals and snacks throughout the day.

If your child won’t eat a particular food for a few days — like vegetables — don’t fret.

But reintroduce those foods again a day or two later, perhaps prepared in a different way. Kids’ “food strikes” usually end by themselves.

Vitamins and Healthy Kids: Five Tips

If you do give vitamins to your kids, follow these tips:

1. Put vitamins away, well out of reach of children, so they don’t treat them like candy.
2. Try not to battle over foods with your kids or use desserts as a bribe to “clean your plate.” Instead, give your child a chewable vitamin after the meal. Fat-soluble vitamins can only be absorbed with food.
3. If your child is taking any medication, be sure to ask your child’s doctor about any drug interactions with certain vitamins or minerals. Then the supplement won’t boost or lower the medication dose.
4. Try a chewable vitamin if your child won’t take a pill or liquid supplement.
5. Consider waiting until a child reaches age 4 to start giving a multivitamin supplement, unless your child’s doctor suggests otherwise.

Sound nutrition plays a role in your child’s learning and development. So, rather than relying on cartoon characters selling supplements, commit to feeding a range of healthy foods to your kids.