Basic Essential Vitamins and Minerals for your Kids

While we need a variety of essential vitamins and minerals, we only need a small amount of each type. So generally, your kids can get all the vitamins and minerals they need with a healthy, balanced diet suitable for their age and activity levels. A healthy, balanced diet includes vegetables, fruit, cereal foods such as bread, pasta and rice (preferably whole grains), protein-rich foods (such as lean meat, fish and legumes), and dairy foods.





Below here is listed basic needs for children from 1 - 18 years of age

 In the alphabet soup of vitamins and minerals, a few stand out as critical for growing kids.

Vitamin A: Plays an important role in vision and bone growth; helps protect the body from infections; promotes the health and growth of cells and tissues in the body, including the hair, nails, and skin.

Vitamin B. The family of B vitamins -- B2, B3, B6, and B12 -- aid metabolism, energy production, and healthy circulatory and nervous systems. Good sources include meat, chicken, fish, nuts, eggs, milk, cheese, beans, and soybeans.

Vitamin C: Helps form and repair red blood cells, bones, and tissues; helps keep your child's gums healthy and strengthens blood vessels, minimizing bruising; assists with healing, boosts the immune system, and keeps infections at bay. Also helps the body absorb iron from iron rich 

Vitamin D: Helps the body absorb minerals like calcium and builds strong teeth and bones. Essential for reaching growth potential and peak bone mass. Also functions as a hormone with roles in immune system health, insulin production, and regulation of cell growth.

Vitamin E: Limits the production of free radicals, which can damage cells. Important for immunity, DNA repair, and other metabolic processes.

Calcium: helps build strong bones as a child grows. Good sources include milk, cheese, yogurt, tofu, and calcium-fortified orange juice. Calcium: Builds strong bones and teeth, promotes healthy nerve and muscle function, helps blood clot, and helps the body convert food into energy.

Iron: builds muscle and is essential to healthy red blood cells. Iron deficiency is a risk in adolescence, especially for girls once they begin to menstruate. Good sources include beef and other red meats, turkey, pork, spinach, beans, and prunes.

Megavitamins -- large doses of vitamins -- aren't a good idea for children. The fat-soluble vitamins (vitamins A, D, E, and K) can be toxic if kids overdose on excessive amounts. Ditto with iron. Your kids can get too much of a good thing.

Essential fatty acids (EFAs): Help build cells, regulate the nervous system, strengthen the cardiovascular system, build immunity, and help the body absorb nutrients. Necessary for healthy brain function and vision.

Magnesium: Keeps bones strong and the heart rhythm steady, supports the immune system, and helps maintain muscle and nerve function.

Potassium: Works with sodium to control the body's water balance, which helps maintain blood pressure. Assists with muscle function and heart rhythm and, in later years, may reduce the risk of kidney stones and osteoporosis. Zinc: Needed by more than 70 enzymes that aid digestion and metabolism, and essential for growth.

Kids should get their vitamins from a balanced, healthy diet that includes:
Milk and dairy products like cheese and yogurt (preferably low-fat products for kids over age 3)
Plenty of fresh fruits and leafy, green vegetables Protein like chicken, fish, meat, and eggs Whole grains like steel-cut oats and brown rice.