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Did you know that fillers, binders, and artificial ingredients are common in many supplements, including children’s vitamins? Some companies use artificial ingredients to create visually appealing, eye-catching, and colorful children's supplements. While these vibrant colors and enticing shapes may make vitamins more attractive to kids, it's important to understand that they don't contribute any nutritional value and may not be the healthiest option for your child. By being an informed shopper, you can find kids’ multivitamins that focus on essential nutrients and avoid unnecessary additives. Here’s how to pick a multivitamin for kids like an expert.
What To Look For In A Child’s Multivitamin
Choosing a multivitamin for your kids can be complicated - supplement brands can vary massively in quality. The source and amount of nutrients, sugar content, and unnecessary additives can all differ depending on the product and brand. But armed with the right knowledge, you can know what to look for in multivitamins and find the best one for your family.
Quality of Ingredients
While it seems like vitamins for kids should only contain things that support health, many multivitamins for children on the market contain artificial ingredients like fillers and additives, or potentially harmful ingredients such as artificial dyes. Unfortunately, some brands tend to prioritize taste and appeal over nutritional value. Here’s why it happens:
- Taste: Gummy vitamins, a popular format for kids' vitamins, are often full of sugar, artificial colors, and flavors, making them more appealing. However, they can also contribute to cavities and increased sugar consumption.
- Marketing: Eye-catching colors and fun shapes can be a big selling point for kids, but artificial colors raise concerns for many parents.
- Unnecessary Ingredients: Supplements can use artificial fillers and other agents in their vitamins. Many parents would prefer to avoid these types of ingredients.
To help you navigate the supplement world, you can start learning to decode the label.
- The Good Guys: Look for whole food sources (like fruits and veggies), natural flavors and colors, and natural sweeteners, like monk fruit.
- The Questionable Characters: Be on the lookout for added sugars, artificial colors and flavors, and unnecessary fillers.
- Decode The Label: Look at the serving size, nutrient content, and ingredient list. Does it require 4 vitamins to get the nutritional value of 1 serving?
- Identify Key Players: Learn what essential vitamins and minerals your child needs for their age group (like vitamins A, C, D, and E, etc.).
Reading labels is a skill that takes time to develop. You’ll come across words that are hard to pronounce, but stick with it, Google anything you don’t recognize, and take the time to understand what ingredients are in your child’s vitamins.
Specifically Formulated for Children
So, what is the best multivitamin for a child?
When choosing a multivitamin for your little one, make sure that it’s designed, created, and formulated specifically for children. There are key differences between adults and kids’ multivitamins:
- Nutritional Needs: Kids and adults have different dietary needs depending on their growth and development stages. Children might need higher amounts of certain nutrients like vitamin D.
- Dosage: Kids multivitamins are usually formulated with lower potency for safety reasons. Too much of certain nutrients could be harmful to children. Adult vitamins come in standard dosages that are considered safe for adults.
A good quality nutritional supplement for children takes into account age and development stage to provide an optimal and safe dose of each ingredient. Age-appropriate dosages and high-quality ingredients are important when choosing a multivitamin for your little one.
Artificial Colors and Flavors
Sadly, many commercially available children’s multivitamins contain artificial dyes and flavors. Gummy vitamins would be pretty bland without these additives and flavors, and making them taste better encourages kids to take them consistently, regardless of the potential negative health impacts those ingredients may have.
Some studies suggest a possible link between artificial food coloring and hyperactivity in children. The reality is there’s no need for artificial colors because you can get natural food colorings from real foods. Think of the purple in beetroot, the orange in turmeric, and the green in spirulina.
If you see the following on the multivitamin label or packaging, put it down and walk away:
- Labels like “artifical flavors” or “natural and artificial flavors”
- Artificial sweeteners like aspartame, sucralose, and acesulfame K
- High fructose corn syrup (HFSC)
Instead, look for these:
- Mentions of “no artificial colors, flavors or sweeteners”
- Whole food sources for vitamins and minerals (like Organic Carrot or Organic Kale)
- Natural coloring sources like fruit and vegetable extracts
- Organic ingredients
- No added sugars
Added Sugars and Artificial Sweeteners
Many supplement brands add artificial sweeteners to kids' vitamins as a substitute for sugar. However, there are concerns about the potential effects of artificial sweeteners on kids. Some research suggests artificial sweeteners may disrupt the gut microbiome in adults, and the long-term impact on children is not fully understood yet.
Some vitamins, especially in a gummy format, can contain a lot of sugar. In some cases, you will find multiple forms of sugar in the same product. Corn syrup, fructose, glucose, and dextrose are all names for sugar. Like sugar, artificial sweeteners can have a lot of different names, like saccharin and aspartame.
A good multivitamin for kids should be free from added sugars and artificial sweeteners. Instead, look for brands that use natural flavors and are completely transparent. You want to know exactly what’s in a multivitamin, so you can make an informed choice for your child.
Probiotics
There are other great supplements you can pair with a kids multivitamin, such as Probiotics.
Crucial vitamins and minerals for most children include:
- Vitamin A: Important for healthy skin, vision, and immune function.
- Vitamin C: Supports the immune system and helps with iron absorption.
- Vitamin D: Essential for developing and maintaining healthy bones.
- B Vitamins: Important for metabolism and brain function.
- Calcium: Essential for strong bones and teeth.
- Zinc: Supports immune function and growth.
A multivitamin for kids usually contains these types of nutrients to support kids' optimal health. Can probiotics work harmoniously with that? Taking a probiotic alongside a multivitamin may help to improve nutrient absorption. There’s promising research suggesting probiotics may help enhance the absorption of certain nutrients. Probiotics also help maintain a healthy gut, which is crucial for digestion and nutrient absorption.
If you’re considering a probiotic, Hiya’s Kids Daily Probiotic contains 10 billion live cultures to support gut health, nutrient absorption, and childhood immunity, and is specifically designed to work alongside the Kids Daily Multivitamin.
Allergens
Common childhood allergies include soy, gluten, eggs, peanuts, shellfish, wheat, and tree nuts. Symptoms of food allergies include tummy upset, hives, rashes, breathing problems, and, in severe cases, anaphylactic shock.
Unfortunately, many of these allergens are found in some children’s multivitamins. These ingredients are sometimes in binders, fillers, flavorings, and even sweeteners in vitamins. For instance, soy lecithin, which is a binding agent, is a soy product, so it won’t be suitable for a child with a soy allergy. If your child does have an allergy, look for labels that clearly state they are free from allergens. Always read labels carefully and review the ingredients list to make sure you have all the information you need to make a decision.
If you have any concerns, speak to your pediatrician, who can help assess your child’s needs and recommend age-appropriate supplements, taking into account any allergies and preferences.
How To Choose The Best Multivitamin For Kids
We know that the world of multivitamins can be confusing and overwhelming. There’s a lot of information out there to digest. But finding the best multivitamin for toddlers and kids doesn’t need to be complicated.
Behind Hiya are a couple of dads who were fed up with finding only sugar-laden vitamins for kids. Instead of buying candy disguised as vitamins, they wanted a simple and nutritious solution without the additives. Hiya’s Kids Daily Multivitamin uses quality ingredients from natural sources with no junk or unnecessary sugar. We use recognizable and real ingredients; no confusing jargon here, just a child-friendly formula you can trust.
A healthy diet full of tasty fruits, vegetables, and whole grains should be the primary source of nutrients for most kids. But we know that picky eaters and busy schedules can sometimes hinder even the best intentions. If you’re looking to fill nutritional gaps, stick to a brand like Hiya that is transparent, free from major allergens, uses high-quality ingredients, and wants the best for your kids.
Sources
Inactive Ingredients / Excipients in Supplements | Consumer Labs
Are gummy vitamins better or worse than pills? | Consumer Labs
Multivitamin/mineral Supplements | NIH
Nutrition and Hydration Requirements In Children and Adults | NIH
Dietary Supplements: What You Need to Know | NIH
Food Additives and Child Health | Pediatrics
Artificial Sweeteners Significantly Alter the Small Bowel Microbiome | Cedars-Sinai
Vitamins | Nemours Kids Health
The Human Microbiome and Its Role in Keeping Us Healthy | Frontiers
Food allergy | Mayo Clinic
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