5 Essential Vitamins for Growing Kids
With the busy school schedule, homework and irregular eating habits; sometimes kids are not able to get the required nutritional needs fulfilled. In an ideal situation, every kid should meet the nutritional requirement and lead a healthy life. However, this becomes hard to accomplish with the changing lifestyle. Health experts also stress on the benefits provided by a healthy breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Parents believe that providing their children with health supplements and making them eat green vegetables will resolve this issue. Hence, one can often hear elders emphasizing on the need to have dairy products like cheese, yogurt and green vegetables.
Vitamins and minerals form an important part of daily dietary requirements and absence of these can lead to serious health issues. Hence, a complete diet can help provide the proper growth to kids.
Owing to the time-constraints of going to work, a fully-packed meal is not always possible for parents as well as kids. This is the reason why doctors might advise giving children a vitamin supplement for the following reasons;
- If children do not have regular meals or do not have whole foods.
Here is a list of five best vitamins for kids, which are essential for their proper growth. These have been explained in details below;
Vitamin A
One of the best vitamins for kids, it is vital for providing good vision and proper regulation of kid’s immune system. This provides proper formation of white blood cells that help defend children’s body against bacteria. Vitamin A can be found in cod liver oil, carrot juice, cheese and some dairy products. Also, vitamin A supplements can be good for providing proper height growth if the kid has a stunted growth rate. However, consulting a doctor is a good idea as vitamin A in excess cannot be removed from the body and can lead to toxicity.
Vitamin B-complex
Vitamin B-complex plays an important role in fulfilling the nutritional needs of a growing kid. This has different components that work on various levels to provide an equal growth in kids. The vitamin B1, also known as Thiamine helps to provide children with good height along with good and healthy bones, it can be found in fish, pecans, and nuts.
The second component is vitamin B2 known as Riboflavin that helps the body change digested food into energy. This has a good effect on the children’s heart, muscles, and nerves. Also, vitamin B2 helps in proper growth of nails, bones, skin as well as hairs. Kids can easily consume vitamin B2 by increasing the consumption of green vegetables.
The third component of the vitamin B-complex family is vitamin B3, also known as Niacin. It helps provide kids the energy to work and play without too much stress. This has the responsibility to keep the skin as well as both nervous and digestive systems healthy and working.
Next in the line is vitamin B5 known as the Pantothenic acid that fuels growth hormones as well as the kid’s normal development. It is taken in small doses via mushrooms, cheese that have this vitamin in good quantity to provide the necessary growth.
Lastly, the vitamin B12 or Cobalamin assists in making the kid’s body use both carbohydrates and folic acid to ensure normal development. Some of the sources that provide B12 include milk, oysters, fish, and meat among others.
Vitamin K
For providing healthy bone growth to a growing child, vitamin K is one of the most essential and best vitamins for kids. It plays an important role in providing proper growth of the child’s body. Vitamin K is important if problems like bone erosion are to be avoided in growing kids, thereby leading to a good height growth. Several sources of vitamin K include cabbage, parsley, and Brussels sprout. Also, green vegetables including spinach, beet greens and turnip greens have this vitamin in considerable quantity. Vitamin K is not to be avoided if the proper physical growth of the child is a priority for the parents.
Vitamin F
One of the best vitamins for kids, vitamin F, has polyunsaturated fat and other important components that keep the body safe from weakness and also restructure bones. This helps to increase the speed of the growth process in children. Foods that have vitamin F include seafood such as salmon and certain fruits including canola.
Vitamin E
This is an important vitamin if children growth is on top of the agenda. The vitamin E assists in limiting the making of free radicals that harm body cells and also provide DNA repair with immunity. Foods the contain vitamin E include seeds, fish, avocados and dark green vegetables.