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| Food & Nutrition
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Water, Water Everywhere
A liquid asset that's crucial for your child
By Wong Sher Maine and Julia Goh
Water, it’s readily available, contains no artificial ingredients and arguably one of the most effective brain foods for your little one. Find out if your tot is getting enough of this liquid asset and what’s at stake if he doesn’t drink up.
DID YOU KNOW
FACT #1
Breastmilk supplies all the fluid and nutrients babies need for the first six months, so no other drinks and foods are needed.
FACT #2
For great-smelling breath, keeping swigging water as saliva hydrates the tongue and gets rid of bacteria.
FACT #3
Children are more susceptible to heat stress because they are smaller, nearer the ground and therefore more readily exposed to heat coming from below.
FACT #4
Carry a bottle of water everywhere and offer it often ? your child will also be less tempted to pester you to buy sweet drinks. |
“We can last weeks without food, but only days without water. It is amazing how something so inexpensive, calorie-free and readily available is so under-rated.”
Humans are made up of about 70 per cent water ? almost every cell in your body needs water to function properly.
“In Singapore, boiled tap water is perfectly safe and sufficient for a child. Water filers just remove any physical particles so the water is cleaner, but the boiling process sterilises water.” |
FOUR-year-old Darryl Loh hated drinking plain water. All he wanted to guzzle was milk, sweet canned drinks from the refrigerator that his mother kept for guests, and cup after cup of Milo.
His mother Rachel Tan, 30, a policy executive, says, “It was so bad, he’d scream whenever I filled his water-bottle with plain water. At one time, when the weather was very hot, he wasn’t drinking enough liquids. He got constipated and fell ill with several bouts of sore throat.
“My mother said he was very ‘heaty’,” she noted, referring to the Chinese belief of excessive internal heat. Darryl is typical of many children in Singapore. He does not drink enough and when he does, he is not downing water, probably the best thirst-quencher available.
Sports dietitian Gerard Wong points out, “We can last weeks without food, but only days without water. It is amazing how something so inexpensive, calorie-free and readily available is so under-rated.”
SMALL TALK
Children get dehydrated if they don’t drink enough water. You can tell if your child is parched by looking at his urine: A small amount of dark yellow urine is a sure sign that he is not drinking enough. Other symptoms include tiredness, a dry tongue, eyes or lips, lethargy, and in the case of infants, sunken fontanelles (the soft spot on your baby’s skull).
Consultant paediatrician Dr Ong Eng Keow notes that if children do not drink enough water, they can get sick. Humans are made up of about 70 per cent water. Indeed, almost every cell in your body needs water to function properly
Since they are small in size, children are more prone to dehydration as they have a greater surface area to body mass ratio than adults. This means that they are more likely to lose water by evaporation. Also, kids absorb heat faster, have a high metabolic rate and a less developed sweating ability and thirst response, while their kidneys do not conserve water as well as an adult’s.
If a child falls ill, water is especially critical. Paediatrician Cheng Tai Kin explains, “Drinking sufficient water is especially important when a child has a fever, as not drinking enough can delay his recovery.”
Dr Ong adds, “As children have less reserves, they may get dehydrated faster if they are losing water from vomiting or diarrhoea.”
WATER SMARTS
As parents, you’d want to know that dehydration also affects brain function. In the UK, studies have found that there are improvements in concentration levels, academic performance and pupil behaviour in schools where water is provided throughout the day and fizzy drinks are banned.
To underscore this, an experiment in a Scottish school also found that drinking water contributed to improvements in pupils’ test results. Among thirsty young adults, their mental performance ? including memory, attention and concentration ? can fall by about 10 per cent.
You may think that as long your child gets adequate liquids, he’s doing fine, even if it is not plain water per se. Dr Ong agrees, “Water can be given in the forms of milk, juice, Milo, barley water and other beverages. There is no need to give plain water as such.”
Still, you’d want to create good drinking habits in your child for the long term, and the first three years of life are the easiest to teach your little one good habits.
STOP THE ROT
Indeed, teaching your child to reach for plain water rather than sweet drinks can have far-ranging benefits. On his teeth, for instance. One homemaker learnt this the hard way she took her 4-year-old son to the dentist recently after he complained of toothache. The dentist found three cavities, all required fillings.
The mum reckons her son’s tooth decay is the outcome of going to bed with a comfort bottle of milk, plus drinking milk several times through the night. She says, “My husband and I love fizzy drinks and we filled our fridge with lots of cans, which our kids would freely help themselves to. My boy would drink several cans a day and he didn’t always brush his teeth.”
Consuming sugary drinks also has an impact on your child’s weight. A recent study by researchers at Australia’s Deakin University found that primary school children who consumed juice and other fruit drinks regularly were twice as likely to be overweight or obese.
Don’t just finger soft drinks either, fruit juices are packed with sugar as well, the experts say. Juice also fills children up and stops them eating nutrient- and fibre-rich foods like whole fruit and vegetables.
BOTTOMS UP!
There’s good news ? parents are getting help from the Health Promotion Board (HPB) on their quest to win their children over to the benefits of drinking water, or at least, healthier drinks with less sugar. As part of HPB’s Model School Tuckshop Programme, which was launched in 2003, tuckshop stalls are encouraged to sell drinks with less sugar. School should also have at least two water coolers in the tuckshop.
Dr Ong also gives this assurance, “Children do not get sick because they do not take enough water, unless they have been deliberately deprived from water. A child will not on his own restrict his fluid intake such that he gets dehydrated if he is well. You only need to give more fluids when he is having fever or when he is unwell.”
Remember, water is the cheapest, most thirst-quenching pick-me-up. As children learn by example, they’ll be encouraged to drink water if they see their parents chugging often. So drink up!
If you have any comments or practical suggestions, write to us at editor@family.sg
- Mother & Baby
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