The First Lady wants you to drink more water.
On a call announcing Michelle Obama's newest healthy living
initiative Wednesday, Let's Move Executive Director Sam Kass explained
that the White House is working with cities, private companies and
public taps to promote the message to "drink up."
Participating companies include Brita, Poland Spring, Evian, Dasani,
Voss and others, which will carry a "Drink Up" logo on their bottles,
and participating cities include Chicago, Los Angeles county, Houston
and, appropriately, Watertown, Wis., where the First Lady is visiting
Thursday to kick off the initiative.
"Every participating company is only focusing on drinking water,"
Kass said, and not on why its particular brand of water is "better" than
another.
Kass cited Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data that show 43 percent of Americans
drink fewer than four cups of water
a day, and about one in four kids don't drink water at all on a given
day. An author of the CDC study, Dr. Alyson Goodman, said the first
finding "likely indicates that many people either choose less healthy
beverages to satisfy their thirst or drink little water daily."
Noticeably absent from the new campaign to drink more water are the reasons
why
people should do so. Hydration is vital to a healthy, well-functioning
body because it maintains body temperature at a normal level,
promotes removal of waste from the body (through urination and perspiration), lubricates joints and protects the body's tissues. And drinking water
instead of sugary drinks is a good way to decrease daily sugar consumption, which has been
linked to obesity and
Type 2 diabetes.
Yet Kass explained that the tone of the initiative will purposely not
emphasize these factors, unlike some past public health pushes.
Instead, the campaign is focusing more on "being positive and not
getting [into] details about what a glass of water can do," he told
reporters on the call.
A positive campaign "to inspire people to drink more water is the
most effective way to get people to get water that they need," Kass
said. "We think people respond really well to positive messages ...
Water is the simplest, most accessible choice that people can make if
they're trying to make a healthy choice. Encouraging that is the most
effective strategy."
A LOOK AT THE STRATEGY
But is simply telling people to drink more water really the best way to promote health?
If the new initiative isn't going to put a heavy focus on
why
people should drink more water, David Katz, M.D., founding director of
Yale University's Prevention Research Center and a HuffPost blogger,
doesn't think so.
"I do think there are positive ways to move in that direction to
emphasize what to eat and drink, but at the end of the day, there has to
be [an understanding of why to drink water]
instead of something more caloric," he told HuffPost.
Katz, who is also the editor-in-chief of the journal Childhood
Obesity, said the campaign is likely trying to get people to drink water
rather than sugary beverages -- and any health expert would agree
that's a good thing. After all, a recent Harvard study suggested sugary
drink consumption was linked to as many as
180,000 deaths around the world and 25,000 deaths in the U.S. in 2010 alone.
But if kids start drinking more water but keep drinking soda, the purpose of the initiative would be undermined.
"There's not an epidemic of dehydration, there's an epidemic of obesity," Katz said.
Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition at New York University,
agreed with Katz, saying the push to "drink up" is probably another way
of saying "stop drinking soda," since "drinking water itself is not
going to do anything about obesity."
But if the initiative doesn't clarify that people need to drink water
instead
of caloric beverages, then the message will be lost -- and more along
the lines of, "Gee, I need to drink more water. Oh, it comes in bottles,
how convenient. And isn't it nice that these bottled water companies
are sponsoring," Nestle said.
She speculated that possible pushback from soda and food companies --
some of which own bottled water brands -- could factor into why the
"drink up" campaign isn't putting a focus on quitting sugary drinks.
(Evian water is
owned by Danone Group, Poland Spring is
manufactured by Nestle (no relation), and Dasani is
owned by the Coca-Cola Company.)
Nestle also noted that the initiative could increase the amount of waste produced by plastic bottles.
The push does come as the United States is already experiencing an
uptick in water consumption, with Beverage Digest reporting earlier this
year that
water is now the No. 1 drink
in the country. Meanwhile, the amount of soda consumed by Americans has
dropped 17 percent from its peak in 1998, the Associated Press
reported.
Lawrence A. Soler, president and CEO of the Partnership for a
Healthier America, explained on Wednesday's call that while this trend
is positive, more work should be done.
"There's a lot of momentum we can piggy-back off of with this campaign, and that's why we're pushing it," he said.
HOW DRINKING 'MORE WATER' AFFECTS HEALTH
The National Institutes of Health notes on its website that "experts usually
recommend drinking six to eight 8-ounce glasses of water daily." But there aren't actually any official guidelines for suggested intake. In fact, that advice to
drink eight glasses of water a day is generally regarded as outdated, with mostly
bottled water companies pushing the notion, a recent British Medical Journal article noted.
The
Institute of Medicine says
most people actually do get enough water to meet their bodies' needs
every day "by letting thirst be their guide." According to a 2004 report
by the IOM, there are no "
exact requirements for water,"
but the institute's Food and Nutrition Board did set recommendations
for women "at approximately 2.7 liters (91 ounces) of total water --
from all beverages and foods -- each day, and men an average of
approximately 3.7 liters (125 ounces daily) of total water." The panel
did not set a limit for water consumption.
People also receive some hydration through the food they eat,
particularly fruits and vegetables, said Stanley Goldfarb, M.D.,
F.A.C.P., a nephrologist and professor of medicine at the University of
Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.
Of course, that doesn't take away from the importance of
maintaining proper hydration throughout the day.
Dehydration, when mild, can lead to headaches and feelings of sluggishness. When more severe, it can
lead to complications
such as heat injury if you don't hydrate properly while exercising,
kidney failure, brain swelling, seizures, coma and even death.
Particularly at-risk groups for dehydration include elderly people
and babies, Nestle said, as well as athletes and people who live in
higher altitudes.
There's no particular harm in drinking extra water for most people,
and the only real effects may be needing to urinate more often during
the day (though increased nighttime urination could disturb sleep),
Goldfarb noted. And there are some people who could stand to benefit
from drinking more water, such as those with kidney stones.
But overall, the experts agree that there isn't much benefit to
drinking more H20 if you're already hydrated. "I don't think there's any
good evidence that that will produce much in the way of health,"
Goldfarb said.
