Big bottled water companies partner with Michelle Obama in her new campaign to get Americans to drink more water — by just one glass more. The First Lady’s “Drink Up” campaign aims to educate Americans on the importance of drinking water for better health.
In a recent press release the First Lady said, “Since we started the Let’s Move! initiative, I’ve been looking for as many ways as possible to help families and kids lead healthier lives. I’ve come to realize that if we were going to take just one step to make ourselves and our families healthier, probably the single best thing we could do is to simply drink more water,” said First Lady Michelle Obama. “That’s it – it’s really that simple. Drink just one more glass of water a day and you can make a real difference for your health, your energy, and the way you feel. So Drink Up and see for yourself.”
The website youarewhatyoudrink.org is one of the organizations behind the campaign. Their website states: “DRINK UP, and when we drink water… we drink up. People across the country have joined the Drink Up Movement. Now it’s your turn. We are what we drink. Water is the best choice every one of us can make each day. It’s no surprise then, the more water people drink, the more like water we become. Refreshed. Energized. Invigorated. A continuous source of strength and vitality. An enduring of energy with a momentum that has only grown stronger and more determined since the beginning of time. Perhaps none is more powerful than water of all nature’s forces”.
Clean, Healthy Water Should Be The Issue
But the issue of drinking water is not so simple, especially when it comes to clean and healthy water.
A lot of companies stand to make a lot of money from this drinking water campaign. BRITA and SOMA will play a big role in the media blitz. Other bottled water brands include: Aquafina, BEVERLY HILLS 9OH2O, DASANI, EVIAN Natural Spring Water, Hint, Voss,and WAT-AAH. Additionally, Nestlé Waters North America’s Arrowhead®, Deer Park®, Ice Mountain®, Nestlé® Pure Life®, Ozarka®, Poland Spring®, resource® and Zephyrhills® brands will join the making money frenzy.
While we applaud the effort to get people to drink more water, there are still many unanswered questions that First Lady Michelle Obama and her campaign are not addressing.
There are many headlines in the news of unhealthy drinking water, here are just a few.
Will We Be Drinking Pharma-water?
1. Pharma Bottled Water
The federal standards for “acceptable” levels of pharmaceutical residue in bottled water are the same as those for tap water — there aren’t any.
The Pharma-water Secrecy
When water providers find pharmaceuticals in drinking water, they rarely tell the public and rarely release full test results. When researchers make the same discoveries, they usually don’t identify the cities involved.
The Associated Press investigated the secrecy, see the list of the Major Cities affected by Pharmaceuticals in water.
Learn more about prescription drugs in drinking water, visit this website.
2. Chemicals used to treat drinking water actually might raise the risk of cancer or cause other health hazards by creating toxic byproducts that need tighter federal regulation, according to an environmental advocacy group.
Researchers analyzed results from water quality tests done in 2011 at 201 large municipal water systems that serve more than 100 million people in 43 states. They found trihalomethanes, a byproduct of chlorination, in every system. The EPA calls some members of this class of chemicals “probable human carcinogens” and studies have linked them to bladder cancer, birth defects and miscarriages. However, only one water treatment system exceeded the EPA’s limits for the chemicals, which was set at 80 parts per billion in 1998.
Download the complete tap water analysis HERE.
3. Antidepressants in water trigger autism genes in fish
New Scientist reported that low levels of antidepressants and other psychotropic drugs in water supplies can trigger the expression of genes associated with autism–-in fish at least.
But don’t worry they say, “The research is very preliminary – there’s no need for pregnant women to worry about their drinking water yet.”
The researchers next plan to study whether the drugs have a similar effect in mammals. They are testing this by lacing the drinking water of pregnant mice with the low-concentration cocktail. They are also studying water supplies in areas around the country where there are particularly high concentrations of drugs to determine whether the fish – and people – in these areas have autism-like gene expression patterns.
An autism cocktail, anyone? Cheers.
So you see, drinking just one glass of tap water or bottled is not so simple.
Our Children Need Clean and Healthy Drinking Water.
These important questions remain unanswered:
Will they regulate the bottled water and water stations for maximum safety?
Will they remove the arsenic and fluoride from the water they want the public to drink more of?
Will they remove the chlorines from the water?
Will they remove heavy metals, herbicides, and pesticides?
Will they remove the pharmaceutical waste and psychotropic drugs that end up in our drinking water?
Will the water be alkaline ionized water like nature’s water is, in its purest state?
Will they reveal where their water source is and how it’s filtered?
The First Lady has the platform to address these serious health concerns and she possesses that unique opportunity right now to do so. Instead of confronting the dirty water issues we face in our nation, she will help the unregulated bottled water industry make billions of dollars more. While this is a financially advantageous move for both her and her business partners, it’s a poor use of her important position in the nation.
It would have been a better campaign if the Environmental Working Group or some other independent group was somehow involved in checking the quality of the drinking water. To assure Americans are drinking clean, healthy mineral alkaline water. Let’s drink that up.
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