JOIN USWomen juggle between multiple responsibilities both inside and outside our homes. We undertake many challenges while ensuring that we deliver to the best of our abilities. However, in doing all this, we often end up ignoring our own health.
In order to function well, our body needs essential nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, protein, fats, carbohydrates and water. Blame the hectic lifestyle, haphazard eating habits or an unbalanced diet; the occurrences of nutritional deficiency are widespread, especially amongst women. Even the most conscientious of us find it difficult to get all the nutrients we need from food.
But the good news is, we can do something about it. Dietary supplements can support or fill nutrient gaps in women. Taking a multivitamin or multi-mineral supplement can help ensure that we get all essential nutrients required by our body. However, a lot of you will have various myths about these supplements. Let’s bust them one by one:
Why do I need them?
Balanced diet: Lack of a balanced diet (comprising raw fruits & vegetables, dairy products every day) and untimely eating contribute to the lack of dietary folate.
Vegetarian diet: Both vegetarians and vegans are prone to deficiencies in calcium, iron, zinc, B12, fatty acids and other fat-soluble vitamins.
Performance: As you get older, your body has a harder time absorbing nutrients from food. At the same time, your nutritional needs increase. Supplements can help keep your bones and joints remain strong.
I tried them, they didn’t help
Just as running once on a treadmill will not help you lose weight immediately, multivitamin supplements won’t transform you overnight. They contribute to positive transformation gradually. If you consume them regularly, and do all the other right things such as going for walks and avoid junk food, they can impact your body for the better. Timing is important too. The best time for multivitamin intake are mornings, with your first meal, allowing for the best chance that they will be absorbed into your system with the food you eat through the day.
The key to understanding multivitamins is the word ‘supplement’, which literally means ‘an addition to something else’. It’s not ‘everything’. Hence, following a healthy diet and an active routine along with a multivitamin supplement is the best that you can do for your body.
What about the side-effects?
If consumed in right quantities — once a day for most of us — multivitamin supplements cannot possibly lead to any side-effects.
(The author is a celebrity dietician and influencer of Revital H Woman)