Multivitamins and Children
It is not yet clear whether or not multivitamins should be used by children, and if so, what dosages are appropriate. Several studies have been done to determine the efficacy of multivitamins against different conditions.
One study done in 2002 followed 5-to-7-year old girls to determine the influence of their mothers on their multivitamin intake. About 200 mother and daughter pairs participated in this observational study. It was found that mothers who used multivitamin supplements were more likely to give them to their daughters. Daughters’ multivitamin supplement use was predicted by mothers’ beliefs, attitudes, perceptions, and practices regarding mothers’ own eating and child feeding practices, rather than by daughters’ diet quality. In the discussion, the study's authors recommended that mothers foster healthier patterns of food intake in daughters, rather than providing multivitamin supplements, because the daughters' vitamin and mineral intakes during the study exceeded recommendations.
Another study done in 2009 found that multivitamin use among eight year-old children does not decrease risk for development of allergies. However, it seemed that multivitamin use in the first few years of life decreased the risk of allergies in the children. This study observed over 2,000 children from birth to age 8, and evaluated their multivitamin use in relation to their development of allergic disease.
According to a study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2007, Tanzanian children born to parents who received multivitamin supplements during pregnancy had a reduced risk of anemia, compared to the control group who received placebo supplements. However, a 2009 study published in the same journal found that iron and folic acid supplements were just as good at preventing anemia in children as multivitamin supplements were. Therefore, it is unclear at this time if multivitamin supplements are helpful in treatment and prevention of anemia in children.
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Famous quotes containing the word children:
“In time of war you know much more what children feel than in time of peace, not that children feel more but you have to know more about what they feel. In time of peace what children feel concerns the lives of children as children but in time of war there is a mingling there is not children’s lives and grown up lives there is just lives and so quite naturally you have to know what children feel.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)