The most important nutrients your growing child needs

What are the essential nutrients for raising a healthy child?

To raise a healthy and strong child, it is important to follow a balanced diet that provides a comprehensive set of nutrients that support healthy growth, boost bodily functions, and help develop mental and physical abilities. The most important nutrients a child needs during growth include the following:

• Calcium: Calcium is essential for young children because it contributes to building strong bones during the growth phase, helping to prevent bone mass loss later in life. A child's need for calcium increases with age to support healthy bone development, so it is important that the child receives an adequate daily amount. This makes milk one of the fundamental foods to provide to children as one of the main dietary sources of calcium.(1)
  
   
• Iron: Iron plays an important role in producing red blood cells that transport oxygen throughout the body. It also contributes to muscle cell formation, supports brain development, and enhances immune function. Iron is necessary for improving a child's ability to concentrate, learn, and grow properly. To meet a child's iron needs during growth, it can be obtained from iron-rich foods, as well as iron-fortified growing-up milk, which helps prevent iron deficiency and the anemia associated with it.(2)
  
   
• Vitamin D: Vitamin D helps regulate calcium and phosphorus levels in the body, both of which are essential for maintaining healthy bones, teeth, and muscles. Vitamin D also helps prevent bone deformities in children, and due to its particular importance in the early years, growing-up milk for young children is fortified with high levels of vitamin D to support their health.(3)
  
   
• Omega-3: Omega-3 fatty acids provide numerous health benefits for children; they may help improve symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), reduce asthma symptoms, and enhance sleep quality by decreasing night wakings and increasing total sleep time. They also support brain health by improving memory, learning, and cognitive development, and may help prevent mood disorders in children.(4)
   
• Probiotics: Probiotics are beneficial bacteria that offer many advantages for young children, especially for digestion and immunity. They can help improve digestion, reduce colic symptoms, relieve abdominal pain and bloating, and may help prevent certain health issues, including skin problems.(5)

For raising a healthy child: choose specially formulated growing-up milk

During the period when a child is in early growth and rapidly developing movement, walking, learning, and speech, they need balanced nutrition that provides all the nutrients supporting their growth and health. They also need foods that help build their bones, muscles, and teeth and strengthen their immunity. Hence the need for milk. But can you give them regular cow's milk at this stage? Definitely not! 

Regular cow's milk is not a suitable option for children in the growth period, as it does not adequately provide their nutritional needs and may cause some negative effects in some children. Instead, it is important at this stage to rely on growing-up milk formulated for young children, which contains a balanced composition fortified with the essential nutrients a child needs for healthy growth and strong immunity, such as: (6)

• Iron
• Vitamin D
• Omega-3
• Vitamin A
• Probiotics

Therefore, no matter how good the type of regular cow's milk is, it is not considered a suitable choice when it comes to a young child who is still learning to walk, play, and explore. This phase is fundamental and pivotal in a child's life, shaping their future, physical build, and cognitive development, which necessitates providing complete, fortified nutrition that meets their increasing needs during this sensitive period.