Cereal is a common and easy way to start a child’s day off right. Most cereals have nutritional value and can add to the child’s daily vitamin dose as well. The Environmental Working Group recently released a report that children may in fact, be getting more than their recommended dosage of vitamin A, zinc and/or niacin from some breakfast cereals.
The percentages on cereal box nutrition labels are based on the Food and Drug Administration’s guidelines for daily intake. Along with their report the EWG stated that the daily recommendation is based on an adult’s diet, and this information hasn’t been changed since 1968.
The Institute of Medicine regularly updates their recommended dosage values every year. The IOM guidelines are based on current nutrition information and according to Caitlin Schmidt’s article on CNN Health state, “children between the ages of 4 and 8 should be consuming less than 0.9 mg of vitamin A, 15 mg of niacin and 12 mg of zinc each day.”
In EWG’s recently released report nutrition labels on about 1,500 different breakfast cereals were evaluated. About 7 percent or 114 kinds of these cereals included a large amount of the daily recommended dosage of vitamin A, zinc and/or niacin per serving. EWG stated that most often children consume more than one serving of cereal per meal. If a child ate 2.5 servings at ¾ cup per serving, their daily limit of vitamins would be met or surpassed, and this is without any other food or multivitamin.
Fortification of foods has long been successful in helping consumers gets the nutrients they need, The Grocery Manufacturers Association stated in CNN Health’s article. The GMA is responsible for representing the beverage and food industry.
“The FDA has a robust and clear regulatory policy in place to ensure that fortification of foods is practiced safely and appropriately,” Brian Kennedy their director of communications stated.
“The Institute of Medicine offers additional guidance for discretionary fortification of foods,” Kennedy added.
The Environmental Working Group composed a list of brands of breakfast cereals that are “excessively fortified.” Most of these brands contain ingredients such as bran flakes, wheat flakes and raisin bran. While these ingredients may not be a child’s first choice in breakfast cereals, the EWG stated that regardless, cereals are children’s number one way of “getting an excess of nutrients.”
While cereals are not the only culprit of kids gaining excessive amounts of vitamins, other recent studies concluded that both children taking a multivitamin and children who do not are getting too much of their daily vitamins. While this may seem as a positive to some, in reality too many vitamins can lead to health issues. Gastrointestinal, liver and skeletal damage can occur from consuming too many vitamins long-term. Too much zinc can lead to weakened or impaired immune functioning and an excess of niacin is fatal for the liver.
To prevent a child from excessive vitamin intake the EWG stated parents should monitor their breakfast cereals and other packaged foods alike, exercising caution whenever a label has more than 25 percent of the daily value on it.