More than adults, children need to develop healthy food habits. Equipping them with the ability to make the right food choices is one of the best legacies you can leave them. Yet parents are at a loss how to go about providing nutritional education, because they themselves do not know what the right food choices are, or do not practice making it.

Vitamin Children

Children pass up food that are richest in the vitamins and minerals they need in order to grow into healthy adults: fruits, vegetables, lean meat, and dairy products. Why wouldn't they if they are perpetually surrounded by a bewildering array of attractively packaged processed foods or their images?

Vitamin Children

Let's put ourselves for a moment in the child's shoes. What in the world of food do we see? What else but drive-through fast foods and highly processed items, such as: pizza, ice cream, hot dogs, fries, potato chips, cakes, cookies, candy, and the all-important caffeinated, sugar-laden soda.

Where in the food pyramid do these types of food belong? The answer is, nowhere, if we'll be strict about it, or, somewhere, but questionably represented as the slenderest of slices. That means they should make up just a fraction of a person's daily food intake! However, these foods are being consumed in large amounts; we only need to look at how children look today.

So, we shouldn't be surprised if we find that many of our children aren't getting the right amount of nutrients required for their mental and physical development. (One telltale sign that children are making the wrong food choices: the increasing ranks of the overweight among them.) We need essential vitamins and minerals, and while the human body can produce these on its own, many of the important vitamins and minerals can be gotten from food.

Vitamin D is essential for the development of strong teeth and bones. The incidence of rickets, a disease once thought to be under control, is rising. Its symptoms? Soft, brittle, and deformed bones. A child with vitamin D deficiency would exhibit a thin and soft skull. An improperly formed skull can cause the teeth to grow improperly too. It does not stop there; the wrists, ribs, knees and ankles may grow abnormally.

Did you know that all bodily functions and developmental processes depend on vitamins? These include vision, red blood cell and growth hormone production, and development of the immune, circulatory and digestive systems. Because other vitamin deficiencies in children may not exhibit obvious effects as vitamin D deficiency, many parents are unaware of their children's state of health.

You'll need to take action if your child's diet consists mainly of the food items listed above. You can begin by introducing vitamin-dense foods and a daily multivitamin supplement that's specially formulated for juveniles. Choose one that tastes good and that is either chewable or easy to swallow.

Childrens Vitamins - Teaching Nutrition to Children

Vitamin Children