Washington (SmartAboutHealth) - Researchers have found that the majority of young kids and teens who take vitamins on a daily basis do not actually need them.

Researchers were led by Dr. Ulfat Shaikh of the University of California Davis School of Medicine in Sacramento as they worked to focus on vitamins and their use by kids.

For the study, they focused on data from the United States National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 1999 to 2004.

Overall, more than 10,000 kids between the ages of 2 and 17 were looked at in the U.S.

35% of those between 2 and 17 took vitamins and mineral supplements.

Vitamins can be a great thing for those who are overweight, have a poor diet, lack of physical activity, etc.

The problem though is that what researchers found was that for the most part, those taking vitamins did not actually need them.

The study has been published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.