We all know that a healthy diet is the basis of the child’s health, but research shows that as children grow up, they start to choose their own food products and, therefore, their diet may sometimes have less beneficial effects on health.
To ensure optimal nutrition for children, many parents decide to include a supplement in the child’s diet.
You buy fresh food. You instill good eating habits. It seems that the child is in good health.
Unfortunately, children’s diet does not always provide them with all the most important vitamins and minerals at the recommended daily doses. Due to the significant position of processed products in our diet, children’s picky and their specific needs in terms of appropriate growth and development, nutrient deficiencies may occur in relation to children consumption. The impact of a low nutrition standard has both short- and long-term consequences and may decide not only physical development, but also emotional, behavioral and mental health.
Additional supplementation it is only indicated for those vitamins and nutrients that we can not provide with food, because they are not found in food products, or there are too few of them or simply your child doesn’t want to eat them.
One of the most important nutrient in our kids diet is the fatty acid from the omega-3 family which is responsible for the brain’s development and the eyesight. Research has also shown that it supports intellectual development and strengthens immunity. Even a small deficiency of DHA can negatively affect fetal growth and development. You can read more about it in the study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5588657/
Our body can not create it by itself, so DHA must be supplied with food. Breast-fed infants do not require additional supplementation if mum eats for example 1-2 fish a week. DHA is found in fatty marine fish that can be given to children after six months of age. However, we must ensure that the fish is from a reliable source, because there is a risk of mercury poisoning and dioxins, which accumulate in the fish tissues. The safest and richest in omega-3 acids are farmed salmon, anchovies, Atlantic herring, sprat, Atlantic mackerel, wild salmon, eel, sardines, trout. Another solution is supplementation with preparations containing these acids.
If you’re vegan, you can get Omega 3 for kids by using an algae-based supplement. This contains Omega 3 DHA, to help your child focus amongst other benefits!
Recently more seriously considered way to supplement DHA is the use of seaweed extracts (algae). Algae alone are not a good idea for providing DHA, because the content of fatty acids in these plants reaches only 17%, so you would need to consume very large amounts of them at once. Therefore, diet supplements are an ideal solution here. The algal oil intended for their production is obtained from biotechnological plants, in controlled, especially toxicological conditions. Cultivation of algae is carried out in the seas away from pollution, so that they are not exposed to various undesirable chemical agents, such as mercury, dioxins or biphenyls, and should not even contain trace amounts of harmful substances. Vegan DHA made from algae is the purest, original form of omega 3.
