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In the last five years, the number of children with vitamin D deficiency has increased by more than 200 percent, according to a study commissioned by the UK-based public awareness campaign Vitamin D Mission.1

What’s more, they uncovered that many physicians and parents had a “worrying lack of knowledge” about the importance of vitamin D for children’s health and the widespread prevalence of deficiency.

Your skin produces vitamin D from exposure to sunlight, but during certain months of the year – namely November, December, January, February, and March in the UK and much of the US.

During this time not enough of the sun’s rays reach the earth to produce ample vitamin D in your body (plus, it’d be too cold outside to go sunbathing, even if it was).

Only 7 percent of physicians could identify these months of the year when it is difficult to get enough sunlight exposure to produce adequate vitamin D, and only 4 percent of parents were aware that sunlight during the winter months could not provide vitamin D.

Many Parents and Health Care Practitioners Are Unaware of the Importance of Vitamin for Children

There’s widespread misinformation and lack of awareness when it comes to vitamin D, which is tragic because it’s incredibly important for multiple aspects of health – and it’s one of the
easiest vitamin deficiencies to fix.

When surveyed, half of parents with children under 5 said they knew “not much” or “nothing” about the importance of vitamin D for children’s health. Another third said they had not received any information from their physicians about it.

Further, one-third of health-care practitioners and four out of five parents did not know the UK’s Department of Health recommends children under 5 take a daily vitamin D supplement.2 Unfortunately, they recommend just 280 IUs of vitamin D daily for children aged 6 months to 5 years, and 400 IUs daily for pregnant and breastfeeding women.

These levels are likely far too low to bring vitamin D levels into the optimal therapeutic range of 50-70 ng/ml year-round, and even still it’s estimated that the average British toddler only gets 27 percent of the too-low recommended intake!3 No wonder rates of rickets and other vitamin-D-related conditions are increasing year after year