More on Vitamin D...

Obesity is on the rise in our children. With a fast food restaurant on every corner and with our fast paced lifestyles-- where there is rarely time to sit down together for a home cooked dinner and some schools are not providing enough PE time... it is not surprising that our children are heavier than ever.  There is one easy thing you can do to help...

A 2007 study in "Obesity: A Research Journal" involving pre-adolescent African-American children found that 57 percent of obese children were vitamin D-deficient. The children were given vitamin D-3 supplements of 400 IU each day for a month, but the amount was not enough to raise the children's blood levels to adequate amounts of vitamin D, greater than 30 ng/ml. The study recommended an increase of vitamin D-3 to 1,000 IU per day to raise and maintain serum vitamin D levels. In 2010, the recommended dietary allowance was raised to 600 IU per day for children.

Make sure you are giving your children a high quality multi-vitamin and mineral, along with plenty of outdoor playtime and healthy snacks like carrots and hummus instead of chips and ranch dip to help your children achieve a healthy weight.

Adults too suffer from vitamin D deficiency and it impacts our weight as well...

Many factors that might influence vitamin D blood levels include age, amount of exposure to sun, skin pigmentation, and vitamin D intake in food and supplements. "The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology Metabolism" printed a 2007 study that followed 410 women between the ages of 20 and 80 who ranged in body mass from 17 to 30 kg/m2. After analyzing vitamin D levels and body fat levels, it concluded that healthy women who were overweight were insufficient in vitamin D.

If you live in the northeast... you will not be getting enough vitamin D from sunshine (don't you know it!) and you need to supplement! The connection between weight and vitamin D is only one aspect of vitamin D deficiency.    

To read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/448433-vitamin-d-and-higher-body-fat-levels/#ixzz1b8hSCVpL