Nutritional Supplements Taken For Strength Articles & Resources

Parents see supplements as prevention tools to decrease the likelihood that their children will get sick "down the road," she said. "Having children is one of the top motivators for parents to try wellness products." But parents are not very savvy as they try to buy into a lifestyle of wellness, she added.

Parents spend an estimated $286 million on children's vitamins alone each year, or 4% of the overall vitamin market.

Data from monthly interviews with a panel of 8,000 consumers show that of those who purchase nutritional products for children under 12 years of age, 43% buy multiple vitamins and 38% buy vitamins labeled specifically for use by children. Of those who buy minerals, the three most commonly purchased preparations for children were calcium supplements (45%), zinc (22%), and fluoride (15%).

Echinacea--marketed to prevent or shorten colds--accounted for 16% of herbal supplement sales reported by parents; specific enzyme products and glucosamine accounted for 4% each. Also, 3% of parents reported buying goldenseal, another cold remedy, for their children; 3% said they bought grape seed extract, marketed to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and 2% bought St. John's wort to treat their children's depression.

The top reasons cited by parents for giving supplements to their children were to promote general health and wellness (75%), to supplement nutrition (22%), and to treat colds (5%).

Data from the . Department of Agriculture's Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals (CSFII) were summarized by Alanna Moshfegh, ., of the USDA's Beltsville (Md.) Human Nutrition Research Center.

The CSFII data on 21,000 individuals--including 11,000 children, 1,468 of whom were under age 1--suggest that the parents of children who take a nutritional supplement are more likely to be well educated, to have a high income, and to be young and white. Their children are less likely to watch television, play video games, or eat the school lunch every day of the week.

The survey was first done in 1977-1978. It was repeated in 1994-1996 and again in 1998. The percentage of children using nutritional supplements increased from 33% in the 1970s to 41% in the 1990s. In contrast, the percentage of children less than 1 year of age given a supplement declined from 50% in the 1970s to 13% in the 1990s.

Use among children aged 4-8 years increased from 42% to 51% between the two time periods. Use among teenage females increased the most, going from 28% in the earlier survey to 43% in the later one; use among teenage boys rose from 20% to 29% during that period, Dr. Moshfegh said.

Of the babies receiving supplements, 41% were given a multivitamin and 42% were given a multivitamin and multimineral supplement. Among teenage girls who took a single vitamin supplement, 36% took vitamin C, as did 53% of teen boys who took a single vitamin supplement. Calcium was the most common single mineral supplement taken by teens.

Other CSFII data show that children who take supplements are more likely to meet their dietary requirements on the strength of their diets than are those who don't take supplements, with the exception of iron, Dr. Moshfegh said.

Data from the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey show that use of supplements does not often result in children exceeding their dietary reference intakes in most cases. Again, one exception is iron, where 30% of teenage males and 10% of children aged 2-3 years exceed the tolerable upper intake level. And use of supplements results in 50% of children aged 2-3 years exceeding the tolerable upper intake level for zinc.