I have always struggled to get my son to eat healthy foods, as witnessed by his complete refusal to eat fruit.  Vitamin supplements are the next best thing right?  We all know that’s not true.  But when should you rely on vitamins and where do you draw the line on vitamins and supplements?

For some reason which defies logic, my son loves almost every supplement that comes in pill form.  He loves chewable multivitamins, chewable vitamin C, chewable fiber tablets, chewable fish oil tablets for kids, you name it.  We even had a scary incident when he was two years old where he downed a few non-chewable aspirin tablets because he thought these bitter pills would be tasty.  He refuses to eat fruit and eats only a handful of veggies, but he gladly eats “veggie gummies” even though the smell of them turns my own stomach.  My daughter is the opposite.  She likes all kinds of fruits and tries most vegetables, but she is extremely picky about the type of vitamin or supplement that she will take.  Thankfully, this all works in our favor, the picky eater likes vitamin supplements and the healthy eater doesn’t.

When anyone in our family gets sick, we all bone up on vitamin C.  My daughter refuses the sour chewable vitamin C, but she does like to drink the Emergen-C kids drinks.  And since they both have issues with being regular, I have no qualms about pushing the chewable fiber supplements in addition to making sure their diet has plenty of whole grains and natural fiber (tough when one of them doesn’t eat fruit!).

But I am always concerned about how much vitamins to give my kids. Obviously we don’t give them more than the daily recommended allowance, but we also don’t give them vitamins every day.  I’ve heard that vitamins and supplements are just a big money-making racket that uses scare tactics to get people to spend money.  I do believe that the basic vitamins and minerals are essential for good health, but you should already be getting them from eating a healthy diet. 

But what supplements like fish oil?  I like to give them to my kids because we seldom eat fish and supposedly the Omega 3 fatty acids increase your brain function.  But is what may be good for adults necessarily good for kids?

Another supplement that I have mixed feelings about are fluoride supplements.  When our pediatrician looked up our town and saw that we didn’t have fluoridated water, he immediately prescribed a fluoride supplement.  We gave the kids the liquid supplement and then the chewable fluoride tablets for a while.  Then our pediatric dentist told us that the fluoride supplement was unnecessary if the kids had transitioned to fluoridated toothpaste.  We gave up the fluoride supplements and then a few months later, both kids got cavities for the first time.  Coincidence?  This immediately made me suspicious of the dentist.  Where they just trying to make more money in fillings instead of looking out for the best interest of our kids?  We’re back to giving the fluoride supplements again, but only about once a week.  And our rate of cavities has gone back down again.

What are your feelings about vitamins and supplements for kids?  Love them?  Hate them?

Contributing editor Angela blogs about keeping her kids healthy and their parents sane at mommy bytes.