Marks and Spencer (M&S), a major British multinational retailer, is the first retailer in the UK to add vitamin D to its entire packaged bread range after finding that customers are showing concerns regarding not getting recommended amount of vitamins.

This move by the giant was taken to fight the Victorian scourge of childhood rickets. As it has been found that Britain’s iPad generation that mostly love to stay indoors and play on tablets, smartphones and consoles do not get sufficient sunshine, which is a major source of vitamin D and helps in development of healthy bones.

Health experts in the past ten years have seen that the cases of rickets almost quadruple reaching from 190 to 833 amongst children under the age of 16. It has also been found that almost ten million Brits are believed to have low levels of the vital vitamin.

M&S will be adding vitamin D to its entire bread range with two slices providing a minimum 15% of the daily requirements.

It has been said that from next week, almost 70 types of loves from sliced white bread and bloomers to seeded rolls will have a boost of vitamin D that is normally added to cereals and margarine.

Apart from oily fish like salmon and sardines and eggs, the sun helps to provide the richest source of vitamin D.

Claire Severgnini, chief executive of the National Osteoporosis Society, said, “Vitamin D is a vital nutrient that sadly many people are lacking. This can lead to osteoporosis and other health complications that can be avoided by simple lifestyle changes”.

Severgnini said safe sun exposure is an excellent way of obtaining natural vitamin D but its levels can be refilled through diet.

According to figures from National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), four in 10 children and one-fifth of adults could be low on vitamin D, which leaves them at risk of getting rickets that leads to soft bones and deformities.