from wikiHow – The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Taking a multivitamin daily helps women get the necessary amounts of vitamins and minerals that are important to maintaining health. Today’s full schedules and busy lifestyles often mean that women must eat whatever is available. Multivitamins help balance diets that may fall short of being nutritionally complete. However, with the many varieties on the market, it is easy for women to become confused about which vitamins they need.

Steps

1. Evaluate your diet prior to taking a women’s multivitamin. Do you eat a balanced diet that includes plenty of fruits and vegetables or do you eat a lot of fattening, sugary foods?
   • Choose a multivitamin based on what you are or are not getting from the foods you eat.
     
2. Consider your specific nutritional needs prior to purchasing a multivitamin for women. Individual women have different vitamin needs depending on circumstances such as age, weight and health concerns.
   • For example, women who are considering having children need higher levels of iron and folic acid. Older women who are at risk for osteoporosis need high levels of calcium and vitamin D.
3. Consider the absorbabilty of vitamins prior to deciding on what multivitamin to take. For example, some vitamins and minerals, such as vitamin D and calcium, are best absorbed with food. Iron is best absorbed on an empty stomach.
4. Select the form of multivitamin for the best absorption. For example, pills and capsules do not absorb into the system as well as liquids or time released vitamins.
   • Liquids begin to absorb into the bloodstream as soon they are swallowed. Time release vitamins are made in micro-parts that absorb over an extended period of time once they are taken, as opposed to ordinary vitamins that are digested in pieces. This results in less effective absorption.
5. Read the labels of women’s multivitamins prior to making your purchase. Look for those that cover your specific needs.
   • Make sure the label on the bottle of the multivitamin you decide to purchase says that it is formulated for women.

6. Check to see what daily allowances each multivitamin contains. Choose one that supplements the vitamins and minerals you are less likely to get in your daily diet.
7. Talk to your doctor if you have any questions. He or she can help you decide which multivitamin is best for your needs.
   • He or she can also advise you if you are getting too much or too little of essential nutrients based on the label of your multivitamin.

Tips

• Choose a women’s multivitamin that includes Vitamin D, which is hard to get in daily diets. This vitamin is vital to women for bone health and in aiding the absorption of calcium.
• Look for brand names you know and trust.

Warnings

• When learning how to choose a multivitamin for women, do not purchase one that is formulated for children or men. It may not contain enough of the daily allowances of nutrients to meet the needs of women, such as calcium or iron.
• Don’t purchase a multivitamin that has more than 100 percent of your daily allowances of vitamin A. This is a vitamin that is easily acquired from food, so megadoses in supplement forms are not necessary.
• Do not purchase multivitamins for women that are not formulated for your specific age range. Women’s nutritional needs vary depending on each stage of their lives.
• Multivitamins that are very inexpensive may not provide necessary nutrients or may be of poor quality.

Things You’ll Need

• Multivitamins for women

Related wikiHows

• How to Best Absorb Vitamin D Supplements

Sources and Citations

• http://www.womenshealthmag.com/nutrition/the-truth-about-multivitamins
• http://www.nutritional-supplements-health-guide.com/best-multi-vitamins-for-women.html
• http://www.fitnessmagazine.com/health/body/head-to-toe/multivitamins/
• http://www.consumersearch.com/multivitamins/women-s-multivitamins
• http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/foodnut/09338.html
• http://www.vitamin-insight.com/mailbag/mailbag-question-37.aspx

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Choose a Multivitamin for Women. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.