Good vitamins to fuel the everyday life of your kids

The importance of a healthy nutritional education

Food provides energy and allows our sons and daughters to face their lives in motion: school, sports, hobbies, playtime. Have you ever asked how much energy they require to keep moving? The answer is not very easy because the energy required by each individual is not the same but it can vary according to the need to maintain:

• health;
• growth;
• appropriate level of physical activity.

For “appropriate level of physical activity” we mean the activities that allow an individual to survive in his/her social environment, or to pursue his/her well-being. These activities in children and early adolescents are for example exploration of surroundings and interaction with peers or adults such as playing or going to school.

To achieve such a level of energy supply, nutrition plays a pivotal role, particularly nutrition with good quality food. In fact, often children and guys have their meals at school or parents might be in a rush with no time to cook healthy food. All these situations may put a burden on the well-being of our sons/daughters. Moreover food consumption might be influenced by several other factors such as:

• society;
• religion;
• popular beliefs.

The first environment that influences our eating habits since early childhood is family which can affect our food preferences too. For example, children born and grown up in Mexico more likely will eat chilli peppers and spicy foods allowing them to be part of their familiar and social environment.

Regardless of the environmental and social factors it is known that children who are not used to taste new foods between 2 and 6 years of age might be more prone to refuse vegetables or foods they are not familiar with.

Therefore what we all should aim to do is to educate our children and guys to healthy dietary habits, preferring good quality, varied and healthy foods, containing vitamins and minerals able to fuel their physical and mental well-being.

Good nutrients at any age

Vitamin D

Vitamin D has a very important role in:

• bone mineral metabolism;
• growth and development of skeleton.

Optimal Vitamin D intake is very important to achieve the maximum peak bone mass soon after the completion of adolescence.

Other than bone health, vitamin D contributes to the normal function of the immune system and maintenance of normal muscle function.

Our body can generate Vitamin D from sun exposure of the skin and therefore allowing our children to stay outdoor in sunny days might help them to get a proper amount of this vitamin.

Food sources of vitamin D are:

• oily fish, such as salmon, sardines, herring and mackerel;
• red meat;
• liver;
• egg yolks;
• fortified foods, such as breakfast cereals.

B vitamins

B vitamins are molecules allowing our body to turn food into energy; they can be found in several food sources such as:

• fish/poultry/meat/eggs;
• dairy pruducts;
• leafy green vegetables;
• beans.

Vitamin A

Vitamin A plays an important role in vision health. In fact, vitamin A contributes to maintenance of normal vision and to a normal function of the immune system.

Vitamin A can be found as:

• retinol, the active form of vitamin A;
• carotenoids, present into plants and turned into active form of vitamin A such as beta-carotene.

Food sources of vitamin A are:

• cod liver oil;
• eggs;
• fortified breakfast cereals and fortified skim milk;
• orange and yellow vegetables and fruits;
• broccoli, spinach, and most dark green, leafy vegetables.

Advices for parents

It might not be easy for parents to teach good and healthy dietary habits particularly if they are not used to practise them daily. The best way is to give a healthy lifestyle example and therefore parents first should implement and improve a healthy lifestyle for themselves. If you are a parent willing to know more about that here are some tips:

•  if possibile, control food nutrient quality, portion size, and try to favor snacking and regular meals;
• prefer seasonal fruits and vegetables consumption;
• provide social context for eating behavior such as family meals;
• teach about food and nutrition at the grocery store or when cooking meals;
• counteract inaccurate information from the media and other influences;
• teach other care providers (eg, daycare, babysitters) about what you want your children to eat;
• serve as role models and lead by example “do as I do” rather than “do as I say”;
• promote and participate in regular daily physical activity.

Can a food supplement help?

Children and early adolescents are always on the go. They need to explore and learn and this process doesn’t happen only in school but through everyday experience. To do that they need energy, fueling their brains and muscles and, other than that, they need nutrients to grow up strong and healthy. All these needs can be easily met by a varied diet in which parents play an important role as an example of healthy lifestyle. The general advice is to avoid too salted and sugar-based foods or fast foods to address their tastes to fruits and vegetables for a replenish of good and healthy nutrients.

In this scenario, if you think that a food supplement might be of support in your son/daughter everyday life, you can try a multimineral/multivitamin product containing:    

• vitamins such as B vitamins, vitamin C which contributes to his/her immune system normal functions, vitamin A and vitamin D
• minerals such as Zinc which contributes to maintain your boy/girl immune system well-being.