Gummy Vitamins with Fish Oil: An Alternative to Swallowing a Pill
You’ve seen it on TV, or perhaps it’s happened to you: Mom chasing child around the house with a bottle of horse pills or bad-tasting liquid in hand. The problem is getting it down, whether due to the taste of those chalky chewable tablets, rancid fish oil gel caps or trouble swallowing ones that can’t be chewed.
Google findings of “how to swallow a pill” coughed up an alarming eighteen million results, nearly half a million of which were videos. There were links to simple advice to “relax!” to high-tech tool kits, sprays and special cups to soften the swallow. Search engine results gleaned entire websites and advice columns on the subject: See it in your mind. Take a breath. Pretend you aren’t trying to swallow a pill. And, believe it or not: chew bread–extract bread from mouth–insert pill–re-chew–swallow. Although daring toddlers might not mind, it’s not for the faint of heart!
Add the need for nasty-tasting fish oil gel caps to promote a healthy lifestyle, and this makes it worse. Omega 3 fatty acids, found in fish oil, enhance health in many ways. Studies about the Eskimos that eat plenty of fish noted they rarely had heart disease because they ate a lot of fish oil. Omega 3 fatty acids found in fish oil reduce the severe risk factors of heart disease, reduce the need for certain meds for those with Rheumatoid Arthritis, and may help with asthma, diabetes, bowel disease, lupus, dementia and bone loss.
So how can kids get their daily requirements of vitamin E, vitamin D and vitamins A and K, fat soluble vitamins, and their daily requirements of water soluble ones – like vitamin C and vitamin B 12 – and omega 3 or fish oil to avoid vitamin deficiency, without a battle?
One common trick we’ve often used with pets is to cleverly disguise pills by wrapping them in a gummy bear or a chunk of well-liked, chewable food. Seems worth a try, right? Kids being more curious than dogs when it comes to food, there’s the added challenge of masking the fishy taste of fish oil gel caps. That aside, some pills just should not be chewed. Crushing or chewing a coated pill made to release certain amounts over time, or made to protect the stomach cells, could be harmful to the stomach.
Although data is absent for younger people, studies done in 2007 show that fewer than 35 percent of teens eat the number of fruit servings they should each day, and fewer than 16 percent eat the number of their daily vegetable servings they need. Our teens are not getting their recommended daily values of vitamins like vitamin D and minerals crucial for their health. This makes a multivitamin essential. Picky eating habits of younger age groups compound the problem of getting vitamins from food sources. To promote health and well-being, the best time to take vitamins and omega 3 fish oil is during youth, while brains and organs are growing. So, you ask, what is to be done about this? Enter gummy vitamins!
Are gummy vitamins effective? Yes, when they provide the most bio-available forms of key nutrients, which enhances their absorption so they can do their job and get
Kids need vitamins. Kids need fish oil. Kids like things that taste good. Enter gummy vitamins with vitamin D, that not only offer your kids the nutritionals they need for health and rapid growth, but are made from eco-friendly, natural ingredients. These gummy vitamins not only solve the problem of getting them down, but they also avoid some common allergenic ingredients, like casein and gluten, often found in other vitamins.
Imagine kids (and teens!) smiling while popping those yummy gummy vitamins, and asking for them when you forget.
So, time to toss the sippy cups and sprays, stash the advice columns and YouTube videos, and turn to what works to help you and your child easily get the daily requirements of vitamin D, other vitamins and omega 3 or fish oil all in one multivitamin.
Yummy gummy vitamins with multiple vitamins including vitamin D, vitamin C, vitamin E and fish oil? Getting your daily requirements and tastes good? Now that’s easy to swallow!
Sources:
http://www.healthcare.com/medications/erythromycin-13939.php
http://www.fruitsandveggiesmatter.gov/health_professionals/maps_youth.html
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/152/8/780.full.pdf
http://www.smartypantsvitamins.com/index.php/kids-gummy-vitamins
http://nccam.nih.gov/health/omega3/introduction.htm
Greg G, Los Angeles CA
