How to Feed Your Child Enough Vitamin D

Kids get vitamin D, also known as the "sunshine vitamin," from the sun as well as from food. Here's how to make sure they get enough.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Fatty Fish Like Salmon Or Bluefish
• Shrimp
• Skim Milk

1. Drink non-fat milk for vitamin D as well as calcium. Each cup has 100 IU of vitamin D.

2. Scramble, hard boil or poach eggs. Each one has 25 IU.

3. Grill fatty fish like salmon, mackerel and bluefish. Three ounces of salmon has about 300 IU.

4. Don't skimp on shrimp. Three ounces of shrimp has 150 IU.

5. Send kids outside to play. Fifteen minutes of sun exposure on hands and face each day will almost meet their vitamin D needs.

Tips & Warnings

• The Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA) for vitamin D, in International Units (IU), are: infants 0 to 6 months, 300 IU; infants and children 6 months to 10 years, 400 IU.
• Vitamin D is essential for the absorption of calcium and phosphorus, and therefore for bone health.
• In the past, kids were given cod liver oil to prevent rickets, the bone disease caused by vitamin D deficiency. These days, milk is fortified with vitamin D and rickets is much less common.
• Sun exposure is unpredictable for meeting vitamin D needs. The farther north you live, the more smog in your area, and the darker your skin, the longer it takes your body to synthesize vitamin D from sunlight.

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