Thursday 26 September 2013

How To Get Your Child (And Yourself) To Eat Vitamins Regularly



I’m a self-admitted vitamin fanatic. I have one of those giant pillboxes with a small box for each day of the week that is usually only owned by grandmothers. I didn’t used to be this way though. I used to live off of a diet of ramen noodles, Doritos, and the occasional chocolate bar to even out the MSG. How did I start eating vitamins regularly? Well, first I got obsessed with the results. You can essentially become a better person if you just pop some pills. You can become smarter, happier, more attractive, more energetic, and live longer with just a minute a day’s worth of effort. And you can give that to your child too. Isn’t that magic?

So I went out and I bought all of the vitamins at the shop. I had tons of pills sitting in my cupboard. I took them religiously at first. Then after a week, I started forgetting. Soon enough I only took them once a week. It was such a pain to open each bottle individually, pop one pill, then put the lid back on. This may make me sound lazy, but I am no exception. You should never underestimate the future laziness of yourself.

The solution presented itself when I went to my partner’s house way back when we were first getting to know each other, and he was eating some gummy bears. He looked at me guiltily. “They’re healthy!” he exclaimed defensively. It turns out they were multi-vitamin gummy bears - and they were delicious. I had to control myself from eating so much I’d make myself sick. The next morning I had them immediately in the morning.

Then I had a eureka moment. What if put all of my vitamins in those gramma pill boxes, and make sure a third of the vitamins are tasty? I switched to this strategy, along with an alarm every day to remind me, and when that alarm goes off on my phone, saying “Gummy time”, you can be sure that I eat my vitamins.



There is the concern that the sugar in the vitamins is bad for you. However, what’s worse - a little bit of sugar and being chock full of all the vitamins you need, or a few grams less sugar per day and missing the optimal amount of all of your vitamins? It’s worth the trade and using this method, I never miss a day, and I assure you, your child won’t either.

In short:

  1. Use your sweet tooth to your advantage.
  2. Put your vitamins in gramma weekly pill boxes
  3. Set an alarm so you don’t have to remember.

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