Drinking Water Improves Your Child's Brain Function

Children need to drink more water than adults. The effects of dehydration on a child's ability to think has been well studied and researched.

Research shows that dehydration is a common occurrence and even mild dehydration can impact a child's mental functioning. The good news is when given just a cup of water (300ml), a child's memory recall is significantly improved. 

Another study showed that children who drank additional water performed better on attention tests compared to those who didn't. 

So drinking water can have a positive impact on your child's mental performance and wile we can't make any definitive claims on increasing IQ it seems that like a good health measure to ensure your child is adequately hydrated as developing healthy hydration habits while children are young is a smart thing to do!

How Much Water Should Your Kids Be Drinking?

The Institute of Medicine of the National Academics has the following recommendation for kids:

• Infants:  breast milk is enough
• Children  1-3 yrs: 4 cups per day
• Boys and girls 4-8 yrs: 5 cups per day
• Girls 9-13 yrs: 7 cups per day
• Boys 9-13 yrs: 8 cups per day
• Girls 14-18 yrs: 8 cups per day
• Boys 14-18 yrs: 11 cups per day

(I cup = 250ml = 8 fluid ounces)

Tips to Encourage Kids to Drink More Water:

• Total water intake comes from all sources: drinking water, beverages, food with lots of water content. Offer fruits and veggies with a high water content such as apples, cabbage, cantaloupe, cherry tomatoes, celery, cucumbers, grapes, pears, sweet peppers, watermelon, zucchini. A side of soup with meals can be an easy way to increase water count.
• Encourage your children to drink water regularly throughout the day and be a good example by drinking regularly yourself!
• Use fun drinking straws, special drinking cups and colorful water bottles. Stainless steel or BPA free are the best containers. 
• During physical activity, kids need more water, especially in hot weather. Encourage another 1/2 cup for every 20mins of activity.
• It's helpful for kids to make drinking water a part of their daily routine. Encourage 1/2 to a full glass on waking, offer water with meals, snacks, and when they arrive from school, and again before they brush their teeth.
• If your child says they aren't thirsty, encourage them to have a few sips of water. Generally this will encourage them to drink more on their own. Younger kids may need to try water about a dozen times over a two week period before they start to develop a taste for it. You can infuse water with sliced lemons, limes, berries, cucumbers or sprigs of fresh mint. For older kids, you can freeze berries or sliced fruit in ice-cubes, and add these to water for a hint of flavor.
• Consider a reward system to motivate younger kids to drink such as posting stickers on a daily water log which can help (and you) track their consumption amounts. Even consider doing something special to celebrate their new healthy habit, like a trip to the water park or lake perhaps?

Which Milk is Best for Kids' Health

Recently a New York Times article weighed in on the different milk options available to us. So what is the best nutritional option for your children?

Dairy milk seems to come out in front as far as protein content and absorbable form of calcium. However, all the milk substitutes - Rice, Almond, Soy, Coconut, etc - contain 30% of the recommended daily intake (RDI) for calcium. However, this type of supplemental calcium may not be as absorbable as the calcium naturally occurring in dairy milk.

An important factor to consider if your family drinks dairy milk is to purchase milk that is organic or at the very least, derived from grass-fed cows. In the U.S. cows are given hormones and these hormones are present in the milk supplied. A number of studies have reported hormonal changes in girls and boys due to the hormones in the dairy cattle.

The dairy industry in Canada prohibits hormones from being given to cattle, however, their feed may contain many undesirable chemicals and be of poorer nutrition. What's more, cattle can be given antibiotics and all these substances will be passed on to the milk supply. 

Dairy milk may also not be suitable for your child if s/he has an allergy to lactose or casein, both of which are found in milk. Also, pediatricians tend to advise against dairy milk form cattle if the child has any of the atopic triad conditions: asthma, eczema, allergies. Goat's milk or one of the milk substitutes (rice, almond, cashew etc) may be a more appropriate substitute. Best to speak with your child's physician regarding this.

Another note about the dairy industry is the climate impact from the methane gas released. Climate change has a big impact on global health and every consumer choice has a powerful impact. So try and support your local farmer and sustainable farming practices.

To our global health!

Here's the link to the NYTimes article for your reference: Which Milk is Most Nutritious: Soy, Cashew, Almond or Coconut?