By John Hunter

One of the first things that your doctor tells you to implement for your child is to get them adequate amounts of vitamins. The problem is you know they hate fruits and vegetables (except maybe the very rare few that love them). Getting them to eat their veggies is like pulling teeth; it’s painful and somehow when it’s done it’s agonizing. However, the child needs vitamins and minerals to grow nice and healthy. The kind of nutrition they get today has a direct affect on their health in the future. Thankfully, technology has allowed us to materialize vitamins and minerals into liquid form, giving children something a little more palatable.

If you can get your kid to eat fruits and veggies, great (you should probably get Parent of the Year if you did). But if they’re lacking in the vitamins, consider liquid form. For starters, it doesn’t look like a piece of fruit so there’s already an advantage. Secondly, there is a high concentration of it in every dose so it goes a long way. Certainly there are other, major benefits to liquid vitamins for kids.

1) Mix With Drinks – Kids drink all the time. Whether it’s a juice box in the middle of the day or a glass of milk at dinner they have plenty of liquids flowing through them each day. It is almost simple and mindless to mix liquid vitamins so they can have it almost mindlessly. The “vitamin” content in juice boxes really aren’t good “vitamins” but they don’t nearly pack as much of a punch as the natural stuff.

2) Tastes Great – Probably one of the reasons that kids hate fruits and veggies is the taste. It’s one thing if it looks weird, but it’s a whole other thing when it tastes wretchedly. Unfortunately many children’s first introduction to fruits and veggies isn’t a good one. At the very least, liquid vitamins take on more citrus-y and sweeter elements that are more palatable to children.

3) Easier to Take – Taking pills is a hard thing to do. It doesn’t matter how old people are. For children especially, the throat opening isn’t quite refined and developed. It is far better to have children simply take vitamins in liquid form so there is little risk of choking.

Even though children need vitamins and minerals now, it is just as important for them to have it in the future. Their bodies will undergo a lot of physical and mental changes, some of them being a little more active than not. In any case, though, if there is a deficiency in vitamins they will know it in one form or another. Some of these problems can be very costly and detrimental to the proper development of their body.

Diseases and Side Effects of Those Low on Vitamins

Some of the diseases and side effects can be reversed with time, but there are some that are not reversible by any means. One of the reasons that doctors press the issue early on for kids to get vitamins is so they don’t have to undergo the pain and suffering.

• Rickets – This is caused by a lack of vitamin D. The job of D is to help the promotion of the bones and teeth. It also helps calcium absorb into the body. Rickets starts off as skeletal deformities like scoliosis or slow-growing bones. In either case it is a very painful experience to deal with rickets each day. When the bones don’t develop normally the physiology of the body takes a bad turn. This leads to easy fracturing, decreased muscle tones, and plenty of cavities. Rickets can start as early as birth but it can also afflict people in their middle years.

• Scurvy – You might have heard of early sailors getting a case of scurvy because they didn’t have a good supply of vitamin C. This is a nasty disease that can also be painful. Keeping your immune system is important but if you have scurvy the immune system shuts down and other symptoms such as swollen gums, loose teeth, and joint pain ensue.

• Beriberi – A lack of vitamin B1 is bad for people of all ages. B1 is necessary because it converts food to energy, formation of blood cells, and cognitive functioning. Over time if children do not get this vitamin their energy levels get lower and lower and their focus is less sharp as they get older.

I’ve only identified three diseases but there literally hundreds. They can start young or they won’t hit until later in years. The bottom line is the getting children a good amount of vitamins and minerals is key to building a healthy lifestyle.

Liquid multivitamins for kids are so important. If you can’t get them to eat their fruits and veggies that’s okay. You have a backup plan that goes a longer way and is much tastier.

– John Hunter is a dietitian that has worked at two school districts in ten years. John recommends very highly in utilizing liquid vitamin and nutritional supplements for young children because they are more comfortable, and in some cases, enjoys it better than pills.