Shoppers who go to the nutritional supplement section in any convenience store are confronted with a bewildering array of pills and products.

Products such as Centrum, a multivitamin, promise to enhance general health and promote "the vitality of your mind and soul."

But how necessary are such nutritional enhancements for most people? Students operating under financial restraints might not want to spend the $8.99 it costs for 45 Centrum pills at CVS or the $6.99 for 60 servings of the calcium product Viactiv, especially if the benefits that come from their consumption are suspect at best.

Vitamin or multivitamin pills might be appealing to people for a wide variety of reasons.

Many individuals are concerned about their health, but find it hard to pay as much attention to it as they feel they should. Some simply view taking vitamins as healthy behavior.

Even those who do not give the subject much thought are likely to take supplements occasionally, such as Neenah Hoppe (senior-landscape contracting), who said she sometimes takes vitamin pills "because my mom tells me to."

A large number of students -- especially women -- believe they can substitute calorie-free vitamin supplements for nutritional, caloric foods in order to lose or maintain weight.

Omar Shakir, an employee at Vitacenters, a nutritional supplement center on 214 E. Calder Way, said a large percentage of the store's female customers are mainly concerned with "losing fat and staying thin."

Clinical nutrition instructor Melissa Martilotta warns students against viewing nutritional supplements as "magic bullets" for weight control or loss, citing recent research that has shown that there are benefits to getting nutrients from food as opposed to pills.

Fiber in particular and certain plant chemicals can be obtained only from a healthy balanced diet, not through artificial supplements.

In addition, acquiring essential vitamins through a variety of foods instead of pills eliminates the chance of overdosing on a specific vitamin, something that can actually create imbalances and cause problems associated with toxicity.

Martilotta said female students tend to be particularly lacking in calcium, receiving on average only 75 percent of the recommended daily allowance of it, as well as in iron, protein, fat, B12 and fat-soluble vitamins.

The reason for this lies in the fact that many women reduce intake of specific types of high-fat or high-calorie foods, such as meat, in order to lose or maintain weight, often sacrificing the benefits of such foods.

Most women Martilotta sees at University Health Services' nutrition clinic do not have a problem with their fruit and vegetable intake.

These foods are not as calorie-dense as those from the meat or carbohydrate categories outlined in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Pyramid and are seen by many women as "safer" or "healthier" than these other types of foods.

Besides being likely to have difficulty maintaining a healthy weight when such fare is cut out of the diet, women who reduce their caloric intakes below about 1,200 calories -- the minimum amount required to maintain adequate nutrition -- are likely to be improperly nourished.

Martilotta said she sees women whose caloric intake is at 900 calories daily or less, the World Health Organization's definition of "starving."

Despite their shortcomings, vitamin pills can be beneficial when properly used.

Nutritional supplements are appropriate for some students, especially those, such as vegans, who do not eat specific kinds of foods.

However, Martilotta stressed the importance of assessing the need for such nutritional enhancements on an individual basis, something that can be done with the aid of a nutritional counselor.

For students without these specific needs who eat in accordance with the guidelines set forth by the Food Pyramid, such supplements are likely unnecessary. The benefits of their consumption limited or nonexistent.