A couple of months ago, Carol Harnett and I engaged in a video dialog about “giving employees what they want.” I think I inadvertently took the discussion off-topic, relative to Carol’s main point about giving employees the benefits they want. I talked about giving employees the wellness programs they want. As an example of programs employees want, I mentioned programs that promote hydration. As soon as I uttered the hydration example, I regretted it — but I posted the video anyway.
I’ve seen a lot of unpublished data demonstrating that employees want hydration programs. And I personally receive this feedback from employees frequently. In fact, wellness vendors commonly have integrated “hydration tracking” into their exercise and nutrition tracking software, and some have explained to me that they do so because drinking at least 64 oz of water per day is a fundamental element of a healthy lifestyle. So why not use it as an example?
- Click thumbnail for full-size mind map. Info provided in text format, below.
The problem is that most people believe that employees — and everyone else — not only want hydration programs, but need them. And this is not true. With the exception of employees doing strenuous labor, or those working in hot environments, most are perfectly well hydrated. The idea that dehydration is a significant problem in the U.S. is one of the most tenacious legends of health. And drinking 64 oz of water a day is not, as far as we know, an important part of a healthy lifestyle.
The fact that your chiropractor may have told you to drink more water, or your nutritionist has, or your physician — or the fact that your friend lost 80 pounds drinking water, or that your headaches feel better when you drink a lot of water — does not mean that most people need to drink more water. These sorts of phenomena, indeed, are typical substrate upon which urban legends take root.
I’ll address in a separate post the pros and cons of promoting a behavior that probably doesn’t enhance health, but probably doesn’t hurt it either. In the interim, recognizing that this health myth is now deeply ingrained in our society, I understand that you are skeptical. So I’ve assembled, below, some of the most common myths about hydration and compared them to what the evidence actually shows (I’ve also included a mind map-ish diagram).
The Truth About Water Consumption, Hydration, Dehydration, and the 64-oz-Per-Day “Rule”
References
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#1 by bianca handl on November 2, 2011 - 11:50 am
if you want to be beautiful you have to drink a lot of water. Believe it or not
… Proven By 100 of good Working Models…. in Realtity…. 