Everyone knows that supplements can be healthy additions to one’s diet, filling in the gaps that your food choices or biological factors naturally leave empty. With the right supplements, you can enjoy long-term and holistic wellness far beyond what a typical diet might bring you.
However, you don’t usually see supplements marketed to kids, usually because most folks don’t think they need them… but this isn’t strictly true.
Not sure whether supplements are a good idea for your toddler, kid, or teenager? Let’s take a look at how supplements work for kids now.
Healthy Foods – The Ideal Supplementary Choice for Kids and Teenagers
Before jumping straight into supplements, you should first look into ways to boost the health of your toddler, kid, or teenager by giving them healthier foods.
Remember, young folks’ bodies are still growing and developing. They don’t usually need as much of a given vitamin or mineral as is included in a typical adult-level supplement.
As a result, healthy foods can sometimes be a better choice for making sure that your child grows up healthy and strong.
Put good foods in their body and they’ll have more energy, feel better, and be happier overall. You should specifically target foods like leafy green vegetables, fruit, complex carbs such as sweet potatoes, legumes, and quinoa, and lean, non-GMO or hormone-laden meat.
Note that good nutrition habits also mean cutting out unhealthy foods, like excessively sugary or fatty foods (including juices, candy or fried foods), processed snack foods, or meat that has lots of hormones or synthetic additives.
Bottom line: ensure that your kids have a healthy diet and they’ll be healthier overall.
Focus on Exercise and Healthy Habits
You should also make sure that your kids exercise regularly. Kids need a lot of exercises so their bones and muscles develop properly and so they gain a healthy appreciation for physical activity that carries into adulthood.
It’s very difficult to build healthy habits when you are already an adult. If you set your children up for success in childhood, they’ll be healthier over the long term.
Try to make sure your child gets at least an hour of exercise each day and that they focus on other healthy habits like brushing their teeth regularly, maintaining good bodily hygiene, and so on.
When Food Doesn’t Cover All Health Needs, Use Supplements
While prioritizing healthy food and exercise are both good ideas, there’s also no denying that healthy food cannot cover all of your children’s health needs. Even well-balanced diets don’t always result in your child getting the FDA-recommended amount of certain vitamins and nutrients.
For all other needs, you can and should use supplements! But you have to keep certain things in mind to make sure you don’t give your child too much of a given nutrient.
How to Use Supplements for Kids
When giving your child supplements, you’ll need to adjust the serving size based on their weight. As an example, if your child weighs 50 pounds, and you weigh 150 pounds and take the daily recommended amount of a given supplement (say, a vitamin D supplement), your child should only get one-third of the serving size.
For toddlers who are typically a 6th of the size of an adult, you’ll want to provide a 6th or less of the recommended serving size. For capsuled supplements, you can typically break them open or cut them into the necessary portions. Store the remainder of the supplement in a dry and dark space, in a closed container. With powdered or liquid supplements, it is usually easier to measure the portions correctly.
Top Supplements for Kids
With all this in mind, let’s break down some of the best supplements you can give your kids to round out their wellness and make sure that their bodies get all the nutrients they need to grow as healthily as possible.
Collagen
Collagen is a key protein that your body uses for the synthesis of a variety of tissues, including bones, muscle fibers, and skin! Most people know that collagen is particularly important for the formation of healthy skin.
Good news: kids don’t usually need lots of extra collagen since their skin cells can produce plenty of collagen already. However, your kids do need a little bit of collagen from external sources like meat products or other protein sources.
Greens
Green supplements usually include a combination of superfoods, fruits, leafy green vegetables, and other nutrient-dense vegetables like broccoli, carrots, and beets., These supplements can be beneficial if your child is a picky eater and you have difficulty getting them to eat their vegetables with dinner.
Dr. Livingood’s Daily Greens Supplement is a perfect example of a healthy and tasty powder ideal for mixing in nut milk or water.
Vitamin D
You should also prioritize vitamin D, especially since many kids don’t spend as much time in the sunshine as they used to do. Vitamin D, also called the sunshine vitamin, is necessary for immune system health, emotional and mental well-being, and strengthening of the bones. If your child doesn’t get enough sun, either due to their lifestyle or because of the colder seasons give them a vitamin D supplement. Vitamin D is mostly found in fatty fish but it can also be sourced from eggs, mushrooms, and fortified products such as cereals, juices, or dairy. When choosing fortified dairy, be sure to select organic, Non-GMO, and grass-fed products when possible.
Colloidal Silver Serum
One last supplement to consider is colloidal silver serum. Colloidal silver serum is a holistic antibacterial agent and can work as a topical wound dressing. These serums have microscopic flakes of pure silver which are typically suspended in a medium like demineralized water.
Colloidal silver, in addition to being antibacterial, is also antimicrobial and antiviral. It is effective in helping to fight colds, sore throats, and symptoms of seasonal allergies such as congestion and runny nose. Due to colloidal silver’s antimicrobial properties, it is also effective in helping to heal minor infections such as minor cuts or scrapes, eye infections, or ear infections. You can use silver for children topically or orally by spraying on the skin and also in or around the eyes, ears, mouth, throat, and nose.
Build a “Wellness Cabinet” for Your Kids
As you can see, there are lots of excellent natural remedies and supplements your children can take without the risk of side effects. You might consider replacing your medicine cabinet with a much healthier “wellness cabinet” that contains some of the above supplements and other natural remedies like raw honey for burn treatments or homemade cough syrups.
Want more information or want to check out our supplements for your children? Visit Dr. Livingood’s online store today!
Sources
How much physical activity do children need? | CDC
Nutrition Facts: Cool Tips for Kids | FDA
Collagen: The Fibrous Proteins of the Matrix – Molecular Cell Biology | NCBI Bookshelf
