Taking vitamin supplements has long been argued as either crucial or completely unnecessary to your body's health and overall wellbeing. You may well be wondering: so which one is it? Are they, in fact, a necessary part to the healthy whole, to keep your body functioning at its optimum? Or, conversely, are they superfluous to our self-sufficient bodies, already built with all the necessary mineral and vitamin-producing bodily resources? It is true that our bodies have been built to use and produce the right amounts of necessary vitamins and minerals for our overall health; however, a number of external factors in our present lives either impede vitamin and mineral production or deplete our bodily stores altogether.

The proper amount of vitamins and nutrients are absolutely necessary to our body's ability to heal, maintain immune system response, grow/develop, and daily function. Below is a number of reasons why so many of us are deficient in vitamins, and must look to vitamin supplements for overall health.

? If you are like most, even the healthiest of four food group diets don't necessarily meet your daily vitamin requirements.

? Most of the time, vitamins offer quantities of nutrients that a healthy diet cannot provide.

? Dietary restrictions such as vegetarian/vegan diets leave out many essential vitamins and nutrients.

? Weight loss diets of any form can easily deny your body of necessary minerals and nutrients; i.e. low/no carb diets, etc.

? Produce and vegetables lose necessary stores of nutrients and vitamins during the transporting and storing process, so even consuming the suggested amount of fruits and veggies per day will not give you the amount of nutrients that your body requires..

? A large percentage of foods today contain nutrient-robbing/deplete preservatives, insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, artificial coloring, etc that, not only do not have any nutritional substance, but may harm the vitamin stores we have; if not our body's immune system.

? Stress takes a serious toll on not just your mind, but also uses up a lot more bodily energy and processes that you think. With it, your body's vitamins and minerals are being used in excess.

Unfortunately, the world that didn't require daily vitamin supplements is now our grandparents? memory and will forever be. One piece of fruit in their day retained its vitamins and nutrients due to less insecticides, transportation abuse, and general neglect for profit. Breads and grains were not over-processed. There were no harmful trans fats or chemical-rich fat-free products. With industry cutting corners on quality care and respect for our foods, it's no wonder that more and more of the world's population is deficient in necessary nutrients and suffering health concerns due to it. How our food is brought to us is only the beginning as to why we need to take daily vitamin supplements. Fad diets and stressful lives only serve to add to the problem. So, the answer is yes, for overall wellbeing and bodily health, vitamin supplements are most definitely a necessary.