We know that all liv­ing things need wa­ter to sur­vive. Wa­ter makes up more than half of our body weight and with­out it our bod­ies would stop work­ing prop­er­ly. While many chil­dren do drink wa­ter, par­ents some­times al­so of­fer their chil­dren milk or fruit juices think­ing they need the cal­ci­um or ex­tra vi­t­a­mins. And many chil­dren al­so in­dulge in sug­ar-sweet­ened drinks such as juice drinks, soft drinks and flavoured milks. Here’s why wa­ter is still the best choice to sat­is­fy your child’s thirst.

Ben­e­fits of drink­ing wa­ter

When your chil­dren drink wa­ter reg­u­lar­ly through­out the day, they will stay hy­drat­ed. This is es­pe­cial­ly im­por­tant in our hot cli­mate and when your chil­dren are very ac­tive as wa­ter helps to reg­u­late our in­ter­nal tem­per­a­ture. Our blood, which car­ries life-giv­ing oxy­gen to our cells, con­tains a lot of wa­ter. Wa­ter is al­so in our lym­phat­ic sys­tem, which is an im­por­tant part of our im­mune sys­tem, keep­ing us healthy and help­ing us to fight off ill­ness­es. In ad­di­tion, we need wa­ter to prop­er­ly di­gest our food, elim­i­nate waste and to help avoid con­sti­pa­tion.

Our brains are made up of 85 per cent wa­ter and wa­ter is re­quired for all of the brain’s ac­tiv­i­ties, from the trans­porta­tion of nu­tri­ents, to the pro­duc­tion of neu­ro­trans­mit­ters and hor­mones. Re­search has shown that when we are de­hy­drat­ed, we have a hard time stay­ing fo­cused and our mem­o­ry is im­paired. This is es­pe­cial­ly im­por­tant for chil­dren’s grow­ing brains.

Do chil­dren re­al­ly need to drink milk?

Milk has long been tout­ed as a ne­ces­si­ty for strong bones and teeth. While dairy prod­ucts do con­tain the high­est lev­el of cal­ci­um per serv­ing, oth­er foods such as dark leafy greens, beans and salmon al­so pro­vide a source of cal­ci­um. In ad­di­tion, re­search has shown that vi­t­a­min D is re­quired with cal­ci­um for op­ti­mum bone health. Get­ting suf­fi­cient weight-bear­ing ex­er­cise is al­so an im­por­tant fac­tor for build­ing healthy bones.

While milk does pro­vide some ben­e­fits, many peo­ple find it dif­fi­cult to di­gest be­cause they are lac­tose in­tol­er­ant. In ad­di­tion when chil­dren are drink­ing an ex­ces­sive amount of milk, they are miss­ing out on the nu­tri­ents they will get from eat­ing a va­ri­ety of oth­er foods. Ac­cord­ing to pae­di­a­tri­cian Dr David Bratt “Af­ter one year, a glass a day is more than enough and even that is not need­ed.”

What about fresh-squeezed juices?

Fresh squeezed juices and 100 per cent unsweet­ened fruit juices do pro­vide nu­tri­ents. How­ev­er since the bulky fiber is ex­tract­ed from the whole fruit, it is eas­i­er to con­sume larg­er quan­ti­ties of juice. The nat­ur­al sug­ar in these juices can lead to spikes in blood sug­ar and be­cause many chil­dren pre­fer the taste of juices to wa­ter, they may eas­i­ly ex­ceed their dai­ly caloric in­take with juice. If you want your chil­dren to ben­e­fit from the vi­t­a­mins and min­er­als present in fruit, it is bet­ter to en­cour­age them to eat the whole fruit in­stead of juice.

Soft drinks and oth­er sug­ar-sweet­ened drinks

While it is wide­ly ac­cept­ed that sug­ary soft drinks have lit­tle nu­tri­tion­al val­ue and pro­vide emp­ty calo­ries, many oth­er sug­ar-sweet­ened bev­er­ages such as juice drinks, iced teas and flavoured milk drinks may al­so con­tain high amounts of added sug­ar. Be care­ful to not fall for the mar­ket­ing lan­guage on the front of the pack­age. It is im­por­tant to look at the Nu­tri­tion Facts la­bel on the drink to see how much added sug­ars your chil­dren are re­al­ly con­sum­ing.

The World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion states, “The con­sump­tion of sug­ar-sweet­ened bev­er­ages has been sug­gest­ed as a con­trib­u­to­ry fac­tor to the ris­ing lev­els of child­hood obe­si­ty be­ing record­ed in many coun­tries world­wide.” So it is best to avoid these drinks.

Chil­dren learn best by ex­am­ple, so get every­one in the fam­i­ly drink­ing wa­ter. It helps if wa­ter is eas­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble by keep­ing reusable wa­ter bot­tles or drink­ing cups on a shelf in the fridge or cup­board the chil­dren can reach.

Car­ry reusable wa­ter bot­tles with you when you are on the road and keep a pitch­er of wa­ter on the ta­ble dur­ing fam­i­ly meals. Ul­ti­mate­ly it is im­por­tant to teach chil­dren that wa­ter is the best drink for their health.