To Your Health
August, 2007 (Vol. 01, Issue 08) |
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Choosing the Right Multivitamin for Your Children
By Dr. Richard Drucker
From the Flintstones to the Gummi Bears, cartoon vitamins may seem like a fun, easy way to encourage children to take nutritional supplements. But do they give your child the nutrients they truly need? Get the truth about cartoon vitamins and their impact on your child's health.
Children have a greater need for proper and more complete nutrition than do adults. That is a fact. So, why do we give our kids cartoon-shaped sugar pills containing synthetic vitamins? Proper nutrition is vital for the development of teeth, bones and muscles, as well as neuro-cognitive, immune-system and many other important functions. It also should serve as a primary defense against chronic diseases. But are your children getting the nutrition they need? Let's first understand a child's daily requirements for vitamins and nutrients.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently revised its long-standing food pyramid to illustrate that a healthy balance of the food groups is required, along with daily physical exercise. Visit www.mypyramid.gov and you'll find a number of educational tools to help fit a nutritional plan to your specific child.
Also trying to help ensure our kids get adequate nutrition is the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It publishes guidelines for the recommended daily intake of 25 vitamins and minerals. These guidelines appear most commonly as U.S. RDAs (Recommended Daily Allowances) on food labels. All manufacturers of food sold in the U.S. are required to accurately state the percentage RDA per serving on its labels.
To understand how a child should be eating, let's start with the FDA's RDA of vitamins and minerals. It segregates needs based on two age groups: ages 2 to 3, and ages 4 to adult. In our case study, we modeled a 6-year-old girl's daily needs. Next, we visited the food pyramid to obtain recommended foods from the various food groups in the appropriate proportions. We came up with a list of foods for a single day's diet (Table 1). This set of food selections should yield a good nutritional base for our 6-year-old girl.
| FOOD ISN'T ENOUGH: Why Children Need A Multivitamin |
TABLE 1
Recommended Daily Diet for a 6-Year-Old Girl
1,400 calories, 30-60 minutes of exercise |
| Food Group | Item | Amount |
| Grains | | |
| Need: 5 ounces | Cornflakes | 1 cup |
| | Whole wheat crackers | 5 crackers |
| | White rice | 1 cup |
| | Popcorn | 3 cups |
| Vegetables | | |
| Need: 1.5 Cups | Green beans | cup |
| | Baby carrots | 1 cup |
| Fruits | | |
| Need: 1.5 Cups | Banana | 1 medium |
| | Strawberries | cup |
| Food Group | Item | Amount |
| Milk | | |
| Need: 2 Cups | Milk | 1 cup |
| | Cheddar cheese, shredded | 1/3 cup |
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| Meat and Beans | | |
| Need: 4 ounces | Chicken breast, roasted | 3 oz |
| | Cashews, roasted | 1 oz
(18 nuts) |
| Fats and Oils | | |
| Limit: 4 tsp | Cashews | 2 t oil |
| | Popcorn | 2 t oil |
| Source: USDA Nutrient Data Laboratory, www.mypyramid.com. |
