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Healthy Skepticism Library item: 10226

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

 

Publication type: news

Pirani C.
Rift over vitamin tablets for kids
The Australian 2007 May 26
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21793788-23289,00.html


Full text:

Experts are sounding the alarm over the increased marketing of vitamins and supplements for children.

THERE isn’t much that Tim Xirakis doesn’t know about his children’s health. The father of four monitors his children’s diet and has their vitamin and mineral levels tested regularly.
“We eat good, square meals, mostly vegetarian food, and no fast food,” he says. “I’m a Type 1 diabetic so we don’t have a lot of sweets in the house. I’ve monitored the kid’s levels of minerals from a young age.”
Three years ago, Xirakis’s eldest daughter Carly – then aged 10 – developed an iron deficiency.

“Her iron levels dropped and there were a few other slight deficiencies. So we decided that before they reach a chronic level, we would start her on a daily multivitamin.”

Xirakis is one of a growing number of parents who give their children regular vitamins and supplements.

A study of 503 children by Alissa Lim, a pediatrician at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, published in the Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, found 51 per cent are regularly given alternative medicines, in particular multivitamins and minerals.

Although Xirakis believes multivitamins can improve a child’s health, he says they should only be used to correct a deficiency diagnosed by a health professional.

“I would never advocate self-diagnosis. We spoke to a naturopath first. Unless they were showing deficiencies, there would be no need to take anything else.”

However, health professionals are concerned about the increasing number of vitamins and supplements being launched, aimed at toddlers through to teenagers.

In March, Cenovis launched Kids Brain Power, a fish-oil supplement for children as young as one year. It claims the product can assist brain development, learning ability, memory, concentration and problem-solving.

Sigma Pharmaceuticals is planning to extend its range of Herron Vita-minis, targeted at children aged 2 to 17. Vita-minis brand manager Rachael Conroy says the range is one of Sigma’s “top-selling lines”.

The range includes six products priced between $5.20 and $15.35, including flavoured multivitamins, a sports multivitamin and a cold and flu supplement. The company plans to add a fish-oil product and an acidophilus supplement to the range.

Conroy says the demand for children’s supplements is growing. “It is most definitely a growing market. One of the most worrying things as a parent is ensuring your child is getting all the nutrients they need. Including a vitamin supplement, whilst not replacing a well-balanced diet, can help get through the difficult years, particularly when fussy eating habits can make life very stressful.”

However, Brisbane-based dietitian Julie Gilbert says companies are encouraging parents with children who don’t like fruit and vegetables to use supplements as an alternative to a healthy diet.

“If children don’t like pumpkin, or broccoli, then parents shouldn’t give up on that,” Gilbert says. “Children need time to develop their taste buds. If parents don’t get them used to those foods when they’re young, when will they offer it to them?”

Gilbert – also a spokesperson for the Dietitians Association of Australia – believes some companies are taking advantage of parents who feel guilty about their children’s diet. “I think the use of supplements for very young children is really about a parent wanting to feel that they are doing the right thing for their child. I think companies are preying on the vulnerability of parents and not actually looking at why children need supplements. It’s a security blanket for parents.”

There is no need for healthy children to take vitamins or mineral supplements, Gilbert says. “They should only be used for a medical condition that has been diagnosed, not for healthy kids who are growing well, who can get all the vitamins and minerals they need from a healthy diet.

“They should be used for children who fail to thrive, or who have had surgery or suffer coeliac disease – not for fussy eaters.”

Gilbert says calcium and iron deficiencies were the most common deficiencies in Australia.

However a review of trials involving about 3000 children, published by University of Tasmania researchers in the British Medical Journal in December (2006;333:775-778), found that giving children calcium supplements did not make a significant difference to their bone density.

“Food is the best source of nutrients to deal with any sort of deficiency,” Gilbert says.

Last year Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott commissioned the National Health and Medical Research Council to conduct a $5 million review of all alternative and complementary medicines to determine whether they provided a health benefit.

The findings are scheduled to be released later this year.

However Allan Crosthwaite, technical director of the Complementary Healthcare Council of Australia, says a daily dose of children’s vitamins can help fill any gaps in a child’s diet.

“Unfortunately, children can develop picky and erratic eating habits and many wholesome meals are replaced with junk and fast foods that contain little or no essential vitamins or minerals.

“One of the challenges for all parents is to ensure that their children eat a balanced diet. However, with today’s lifestyle pressures this may not always be possible.”

Crosthwaite says that even children who have a balanced diet may not be getting enough minerals and vitamins.

“Vitamin supplementation for children must be used as an addition to, and not a substitute for, a balanced diet.

“Food is the primary source of vitamins and minerals. But economic pressure on the food supply chain forces many growers and suppliers to only replace in the soil the basic trace elements for plant growth.

“Therefore we should consider supplementation of healthy diets with the essential elements that may be missing from the food chain.”

Crosthwaite says parents should make sure, however, that their child’s consumption of vitamins and minerals doesn’t exceed the recommended daily allowance.

“If uncertain, they should seek advice from a health professional.”

However, Lim says her study, conducted in 2005, found 63 per cent of parents who gave their children complementary therapies, including vitamins and minerals, did not discuss their decision with a health professional.

“Parents should always talk to their family doctor before giving their child any treatment, even complementary and alternative therapies,” Lim told Weekend Health.

“Complementary medicines can have side effects. For most well, healthy, children we would not think they would need supplements. A good diet should be adequate.”

Gilbert warns that supplements used to prevent illness could do more harm than good.

“I know parents who give their children vitamin C in the hope that they won’t get a cold. But children are in contact with other children and they will pick up colds and influenzas. It’s just a normal part of them developing their immune systems, and we should allow them to develop that.”

Parents who regularly give their children vitamins and supplements may also be sending a dangerous health message, Gilbert says. “I think some parents think, ‘it’s okay if my child doesn’t eat vegetables because I give them a multivitamin’. That’s not the message you want to be giving your children.”

Xirakis agrees. “They have to learn healthy eating habits. Supplements are not a magic bullet. You can’t feed your kids takeaway and junk, and think that a pill will fix it.”

 

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Cases of wilful misrepresentation are a rarity in medical advertising. For every advertisement in which nonexistent doctors are called on to testify or deliberately irrelevant references are bunched up in [fine print], you will find a hundred or more whose greatest offenses are unquestioning enthusiasm and the skill to communicate it.

The best defence the physician can muster against this kind of advertising is a healthy skepticism and a willingness, not always apparent in the past, to do his homework. He must cultivate a flair for spotting the logical loophole, the invalid clinical trial, the unreliable or meaningless testimonial, the unneeded improvement and the unlikely claim. Above all, he must develop greater resistance to the lure of the fashionable and the new.
- Pierre R. Garai (advertising executive) 1963