Once again the authors of a research report have revealed more about their own shortcomings than about the intended focus of the study. One has to wonder how they can be so ignorant. To be fair, part of the problem is the style, tone and structure — the very literacy — of such reports, which encourages or expects (at least subconsciously) the kind of statements made in the report that I find so revealing about the authors.
Still, this doesn’t excuse them. Unless they live totally within their ivory towers (the University of California Davis School of Medicine and the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry to be specific) or are exceedingly dull and uninformed there is simply no excuse for their ignorance.
I am referring to a report by Ulfat Shaikh, MD, MPH; Robert S. Byrd, MD, MPH and Peggy Auinger, MS. It was titled Vitamin and Mineral Supplement Use by Children and Adolescents in the 1999-2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and was published recently in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, Vol. 163 (No. 2), Feb 2009.
The study found that around one third of children and adolescents take vitamin and mineral supplements. The findings came from an analysis of data from 10,828 children aged 2 to 17 who participated in the 1999 to 2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. In the survey parents filled out questionnaires and participated in household interviews, and children and teens underwent medical examinations, including nutrition behavior analysis.
The study analysed children in age groups of 2-4, 5-11 and 12-17 and found that younger children were more likely to take vitamin and mineral supplements. Prevalence was 43, 37 and 27 percent respectively. The study also found that underweight children and those children with better overall diets reported greater supplement intake.
So what did the authors say about these findings? First they said: "Our results supported our hypothesis that underweight children would have the highest use of vitamin and mineral supplements," which is fine. We expect that parents of children who don’t seem to be eating enough (and hence are underweight) will be more likely to want to supplement their diets so this hypothesis is reasonable.
They then said: "However, in contrast to what we expected to find, children and adolescents with healthier nutrition, more active lifestyles, greater food security and greater health care access were more likely to use vitamin and mineral supplements." This is where we see clearly just how uninformed and out of touch these authors are. Their expectation here tells us more about them than about the pattern of children’s supplement consumption.
It should have been quite well known to them that patterns of consumption of vitamin and mineral supplements follow socioeconomic position in society. The researchers said that children and adolescents who may face the greatest risks for vitamin and mineral deficiencies are those that actually take supplements less. Children in this group include those with less healthy nutrition and activity patterns, greater obesity, lower income, lower food security, poorer health, and lower health care access. It appears that they finally discovered the blindingly obvious.
Basically, parents with enough education and income know about the importance and can afford to purchase nutritional supplements, including vitamins and minerals. Sadly, those who are less well informed and have lower income — yes, the very people with greater need — tend to miss out on the benefits of supplements. Can this really have been such a surprise to these authors?
