I have never had a pediatrician talk to me about healthy foods, ask for much detail about my family's diet, tell me to give an example of typical meals and snacks in our home. But nearly all of them (we've had a bunch) recommend a daily vitamin. Even after blood tests showed my kids' iron levels were acceptable. Even though we've never shown even a tiny hint of rickets or bad teeth or frequent illness.
Why the recommendation? Because my kids were breast fed -- and breast milk isn't iron and Vitamin D fortified.
At first, I took the recommendations seriously. I started giving my daughter iron supplements when she was a year old. But then she got constipated and it was a battle to get her to take them (if the taste as nasty as they smell ...). Anyway, we ate meat and beans and iron-rich food. So what was the problem?
Now, I just nod at the doc and say "sure!" But we don't do vitamins. This new study makes me feel vindicated (or at least less insecure about going with my gut). A new study concludes that most of the kids who take vitamin supplements don't actually need to.
From MSNBC:
The study's lead author said that kids in the study “who had the
ideal profile — higher dietary fiber intake, higher milk intake, lower
total fat and cholesterol intake, lower computer use, greater physical
activity, lower obesity, kids that had insurance coverage, had good
health care access, whose parents said that they were in good health —
these kinds of kids were the highest users.”
She
noted that vitamin and mineral supplements aren’t cheap. A bottle of
100 multivitamin-mineral tablets for kids can cost around $10,
depending on the brand. Almost $2 billion is spent on them annually.
The article links to one from yesterday about Vitamin D, which is apparently the exception to this vitamin supplement overkill. I'm waiting to get that recommendation this year. But since we're fair-skinned and outside a lot I'll ignore that too.
What about you? Do you give your kids vitamin supplements or are you confident you eat well enough not too. Oh, and how to you get liquid iron stains out of a shirt?
Photo: growingkids.co.uk
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