Alocal vitamin store is part of a national campaign to raise money to help spread vitamin A across the globe and prevent childhood blindness. Vitamin Shoppe, located in the Waterford Towers shopping center, is collecting cash donations throughout the month of May for Vitamin Angels’ Operation 20/20.
Affecting up to 140 million children every year, vitamin A deficiencies that go untreated can result in a child going blind before age 6. However, vitamin A, given to a child twice a year for four years, can prevent blindness forever. Just 25 cents is needed to buy a year’s supply of vitamin Afor a child in need.
“I really believe in this cause,” said Damaris Mack, Vitamin Shoppe store manager. “It’s a good way to help children around the world.” The goal of Operation 20/20 is to eradicate childhood blindness caused by vitamin A deficiency (VAD) worldwide by the year 2020.
The campaign aims to achieve this feat by providing two high-dose vitamin A capsules to children ages 1 to 4 and lactating mothers each year for a course of four to five years. Vitamin A is critical for vision, bone growth and normal physical development, and plays a key role in supporting a child’s immune system.
Currently, half the children who go blind from VAD die each year from infections and ailments that otherwise would be non-life-threatening. As of May 10, more than 350 company- owned retail stores had raised nearly $80,000 nationally, enough to help 311,700 children from going blind.
This year’s goal is to reach 7.5 million children. Last year, Operation 20/20 reached over 7 million children, mothers and babies in 17 countries around the world to prevent VAD childhood blindness. In addition to the vitamin A, all the children received de-worming medicine to improve the absorption of the vitamin A and help combat intestinal parasites.
Vitamin Angels, a charitable organization established in 1994, launched a global initiative to focus specifically on providing vitamin Anutritional supplements to at-risk children living in extreme poverty. “The Vitamin Shoppe is very supportive of the work being accomplished by Vitamin Angels,” said Tony Truesdale, president and chief merchandising officer of the Vitamin Shoppe.
“To help support their tremendous efforts, this year we’ve added a new limited edition T-shirt to help raise money.” Customers can donate $1 or more to the campaign and sign a Vitamin Angels paper angel to hang in the store. Any customer who donates $5 or more will receive a special Operation 20/20 wristband. The limited edition T-shirt is available at stores for a donation of $10, while supplies last.
Online customers can also donate with each purchase at www.vitaminshoppe. com and will receive a T-shirt for a donation of $10 or more. “We’re proving that vitamins work, period. They’re effective, the results are dramatic and they are a clear solution to major global health problems,” said Howard Schiffer, founder of Vitamin Angels.
“It’s hard to debate the benefits of vitamins when we are literally seeing the difference every day and Vitamin Shoppe is helping to make that possible.”
Vitamins can help everyone
While Operation 20/20 is a worthy cause, Mack said everyone can benefit from taking some form of vitamins or supplements. Vitamin Shoppe sells vitamins, minerals, nutritional supplements, herbs, sports nutrition formulas, homeopathic remedies, and other health and beauty aids. Multivitamins are a particularly good way to improve one’s health, she said.
“Multivitamins are essential for people of all ages, from kids to seniors,” Mack said. “People don’t have a good daily diet. Multivitamins fill the nutritional gaps, helping to give you energy and good overall health.” Best-selling multivitamins at the Vitamin Shoppe include Ultimate Man, Ultimate Woman and, for the more athletically inclined, Ultimate Man Elite. While all these multivitamins are time-released, and therefore can be taken any time of day, they differ significantly from one another, she said.
The men’s product is enriched with herbs, which aids prostate health. Meanwhile, women need extra iron for their menstrual cycles, and require more calcium for strong bones, warding off osteoporosis, she said. Ultimate Woman also contains antioxidants that help prevent wrinkles by working against free radicals that cause a breakdown of many tissues in the body, including the skin.
The formula for Ultimate Man Elite supports fitness training by supplying more amino acids, which help build muscles and allow them to recover quickly. But there are many more protein-based supplements that help develop muscle mass and accelerate recovery time. Kay Elkhaldi of the Vitamin Shoppe on Alafaya Trail is a believer in the power of health supplements. Lifting weights for two hours each and every day, she knows well the relationship between proteins and muscle.
But in explaining the various natural sources of protein — soy, rice, peas and meat — Elkhaldi excitedly talks about a new way to take in whey protein, a byproduct of cheese manufactured from cow’s milk. This specialty protein supplement involves a process known as hydrolization, where water is mixed with whey protein, allowing the body to absorb 600 percent more of the whey protein than in its dry form, she said.
For the last two months, Elkhaldi regularly has taken hydrolized whey protein, which is both low-carb and low-sugar. “I noticed a huge difference when I started it. I’m gaining muscle very quickly,” she said. She added that, in general, whey isolate, which is whey in its purest form, is easier for the body to absorb than whey concentrate.
