3 reasons why children should drink water

3 top reasons why children should drink water.

Avoid dehydration. Children need to drink water throughout the day in order to help maintain their body temperature, make bodily fluids and for day-to-day functioning. Young children and babies are at highest risk of becoming dehydrated. If your child is very thirsty, they are probably already dehydrated.

To maintain good digestion and gut health.Children need water to digest food and get rid of waste. Water is the main ingredient in perspiration, also called sweat. Besides being an important part of the fluids in the body, water is needed by each cell to work.

Developmental Growth.At the earliest part of a child's life, their bodies are sensitive to any type of deficiency. The body needs water for healthy joints, bones, teeth, and blood circulation. Most major organs depend on water to function well – even more than they depend on food.

Risks of dehydration

Dehydration causes the concentration of salt in the blood to fall or rise abnormally. Changes in salt concentration can make the symptoms of dehydration worse and can worsen lethargy. 

Quality drinking water means it is well filtered and free from chlorine and contaminants that can be present in dirty water pipes leading to the drinking tap. Having freshly filtered water is key and drinking out of a glass would be recommended. Micro-plastics can be present plastic bottles. These micro-plastics can build up in the body of a young child , hence many parents would opt to offer glass cups instead of those made of plastics.

Should plastics be used, it is best not to reuse single-use plastic bottles as these are not meant to be used repeatedly. 

Starting a child on a good practice to hydrate throughout the day is a good life long habit to adopt. Parents can make drinking water fun by modelling drinking water often and also making it fun by playing simple hydration games. Some simple games ideas can include, Bottoms UP! or Cheers! 

Filtered water is also fun when it pops out from a drinking tap and since it is safe for a young child to dispense from a drinking tap without the worry of extreme hot temperatures, one can consider installing a simple filtered drinking tap at the kitchen to allow children to learn how to fill up water bottles easily.

Tomal Refines Living