Drinking enough water could improve your
kids’ mental performance. So how much water should children drink a day?
It’s been suggested that children who are
mildly dehydrated at school have a low concentration span, impaired fine motor
skills and poorer short-term memory. Various bits of research have been done to
find out if children who are properly hydrated perform better and are better
behaved in school.
Tests have shown that:
- children who had extra
water performed visual attention tasks better than those who hadn’t had any
extra water*
- children who were given
water to drink at school had significantly improved skills such as handwriting
and ability to copy text**
- the number of items that
children could repeat in sequence was significantly reduced if they became
dehydrated ***
- drinking extra water
over the course of the school day helped to improve children’s short-term
memory ***
60% of a child’s body is made up of water
and just a 1% to 2% loss of water means they’re dehydrated. The UK government’s
Eatwell Guide says we should all be drinking around six to eight glasses of
fluid a day to stay healthily hydrated, and that children should be gradually
working their way up to this amount as they grow. Water, low-fat milk and
sugar-free drinks all count towards our daily fluid intake.
Why
children need to drink milk
While pure water is always best, milk is
particularly important for kids’ health. Children up to the age of two should
drink whole fat milk for the calories they need. But babies should not drink
cow’s milk until they’re a year old as they need more nutrients. Kids from the
age of two can gradually move to semi-skimmed milk as long as they have a
healthily varied and balanced diet.
Why
we need to limit juices and smoothies
Children and adults alike should drink no
more than one small glass of fruit juice, vegetable juice or smoothie a day.
When fruit and veg are blended or juiced, they release ‘free sugars’ which can
damage your teeth. The natural sugar is less harmful to your teeth when eaten
as part of whole fruit and veg. This also means that your daily glass of juice
or smoothie is best drunk with a meal.
Stay
clear of fizzy drinks
Children should not drink shop-bought
fizzy drinks; flavoured water and milk; and squashes and juice drinks with
added sugar. All of these are low in nutrients and high in sugar. Children
whose drinks contain large amounts of sugar are at risk of tooth decay and
becoming overweight.
What
are the best drinks for children?
Drinking water and low-fat milk is the
best way for children to stay healthily hydrated. Try adding slices of fruit to
water to add flavour. Drinking chilled water helps it feel more refreshing. The
added buzz of being able to safely dispense filtered and chilled water
themselves from a countertop purifier also can encourage kids to drink more
water.
Sources
*Edmonds CJ & Burford D (2009) Should
children drink more water?: The effects of drinking water on cognition in
children. Appetite 52(3), 776-9.
**Booth P et al. (2012) Water
supplementation improves visual attention and fine motor skills in
schoolchildren. Education and Health 30(3), 75-79.
***Fadda R et al. (2012) Effects of
drinking supplementary water at school on cognitive performance in children.
Appetite 59(3), 730-7.
source: nhs.uk
