Essential Vitamins for Children

All of us really wanted to have a healthy children, so parents did some research about the essential vitamins needed for children. And also based from the recommendations of the pediatrician during consultations. Below are the essential vitamins beneficial for the children in order to become healthy.

Calcium
Calcium is the key for building strong bones and teeth, for promoting nerve and muscle function, for helping blood clot, and for activating enzymes that convert food into energy.
A few tips for maximizing calcium intake:
• Use milk instead of water when making cereals and soups.
• Use evaporated milk in place of regular milk in recipes — it has twice the calcium of regular milk.
• Add yogurt to fruit salads; nonfat milk powder to pancake batter, sauces, and smoothies; and cheese to vegetables, sauces, and mashed potatoes.
• Buy calcium-fortified juice, bread, and cereal.

Iron
• Iron is important for making hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying red pigment in blood, and myoglobin, a pigment that stores oxygen in muscles. Lack of iron can cause anemia, which can result in fatigue, weakness, and irritability. Iron also affects brain development.
Keep in mind that there's a difference between animal and plant sources of iron. Heme iron — the kind you get from animal sources such as meat, fish, shellfish, and poultry — is easily absorbed by the body. But the body needs help to absorb non-heme iron — the kind found in non-animal sources like dark green leafy vegetables, legumes, fortified breads and grains, and dried fruits. (Egg yolks also contain iron, mostly non-heme.)

You can increase the amount of non-heme iron the body absorbs by serving it with foods that contain heme iron, or with foods rich in vitamin C, such as orange juice, oranges, strawberries, red peppers, papaya, broccoli, grapefruit, cantaloupe, tomatoes, mangoes, and potatoes.

Zinc
Zinc is needed in more than 70 enzymes that aid digestion and metabolism. And children who don't get enough zinc risk stunting their growth.

Vitamin D
• Surprisingly, the requirement for vitamin D — 200 IUs or 5 micrograms per day — is the same from birth to age 50. Vitamin D helps the body absorb minerals like calcium and builds strong teeth and bones. It's called the "sunshine vitamin" because the body can make it when the skin is exposed to sunlight.

Vitamin A
• Vitamin A plays an important role in vision and bone growth, and helps protect the body from infections. Vitamin A also promotes the health and growth of cells and tissues in the body, particularly those in the hair, nails, and skin.

And about those rumors: Yes, carrots and other vitamin A-rich foods are essential for good eyesight. And while it's possible to get too much vitamin A from animal sources like liver, it's nearly impossible to overdose by getting "too many" carotenoids, the orange and yellow pigments in fruits and vegetables, like carrots.

Vitamin C
Vitamin C helps form and repair red blood cells, bones, and tissues. It helps keep your child's gums healthy and strengthens his blood vessels, minimizing bruising from falls and scrapes. Vitamin C helps heal cuts and wounds, boosts the immune system, and keeps infections at bay. And it helps the body absorb iron from plant-based foods.