Gigantic water bottles

[Fizbosshoes]

Prompted by a sign at the train station telling people to always carry a bottle of water with them in hot weather.

I'm rubbish at drinking water, I find it very boring but I try to drink a bottle (500ml, or very occasionally - if its hot, 750ml) a day, mainly to stop me drinking other unhealthy drinks, and in the hope it is doing some good. The only noticeable difference is that I need to wee more often. I don't always have a bottle of water with me on the train though.

My teens are much better than me at drinking water. Dd often takes a small chilly bottle (I think its 250ml) if she goes out. DS drinks water at home or with meals but would only take a water bottle out if he was doing sport.

But I've noticed people with gigantic - like 2 litre - water bottles, sometimes a parent carrying multiple ones for children.My (adult) nephew had one with him the other day at a family BBQ.

But what started it? When I was a kid I never had a water bottle when I was out. (And we didnt really have it at meals ) Then sometime between then and now bottled water became a thing, now I think more people have reusable, much larger, water bottles.

As long as no one is forcing me to drink more water (or asking me to lug around their 2l bottle) then I've got no problem with it, but I'm curious how or why the amount of water we need to drink seems to have increased. (In other ways people are less healthy than in the 80s, but I'm sure "we" drink way more water...?)

@Alalalalalongalalalalalonglonglilong I went to primary in the 90s in Ireland. I would have had that little carton (of warm from sitting in the sun) milk, I can still picture whee . A bottle of miwidi orange for break and of course a flask of tea at lunch god forbid we didn't have tea! In secondary which I left in 2006 there was a tea lady handing out cups of tea at lunch. I did 4 years of secondary in England, there was no free tea.

My ILs are in their 70s and hardly ever drink water. My grandparents would have been the same

I do wonder how healthy it is to be sipping from the same water bottle all day without cleaning it, especially if there's a bit of backwash going on during meals etc! I'd rather a smaller cup and a quick rinse when I refill if using the same cup.
The big mugs have their place if you can't get to fresh water though, unlikely for most people I suspect.

I have low blood pressure and have to drink a lot of water to stop me feeling faint.

I have a 1L chilly and a 500ml chilly on my desk at work. I then refill the 500 while at work and then have another couple of pints when I'm home from work.

I pour my water into a glass.

I see your point though. I don't remember drinking water as a young person.

This.

You should eat your water, you may need maybe an extra pint of liquid on a normal day, more if you are sweating a lot.

You certainly shouldn't worry if you don't like drinking water that much.

Wasn't there research 15 years or so ago that showed being dehydrated affected learning? I may be wrong but I distinctly remember it became a thing for children to have access to their own water bottles regularly at school. I suppose it's grown from there, especially with people trying to be eco friendly and reduce the use of single use plastics.

I know people who carry large water bottles for self defence.

We had water bottles at primary school in the 1970s. It was overseas, but nowhere hot.

I suppose how much water you need must be partly genetic, partly environment, but partly habit.

I usually have a cup of tea with breakfast, 1 with lunch and a glass of water with my evening meal.

If it’s a hot day, or I am doing something strenuous, I might have another drink outside mealtimes, but that’s not the norm at all for me. I don’t tend to snack between meals either. I never carry a water bottle unless we are going on a hike or it’s a really hot day.

DH has loads of pint glasses of water and cups of coffee a day. He takes a water bottle with him for sport, but otherwise drinks from a glass.

DC take small 300ml water bottles to school, but nearly always come home with them still half to a third full unless it is a really hot day. They also don’t tend to drink outside meal times, although they have free access and could if they wished.

My DC are usually astounded by the volumes that other children drink.

I carry a (not giant) water bottle everywhere, especially in the summer as thanks to hayfever and chronic sinus issues I'm a mouth breather so I get a very dry mouth very quickly.

I have to drink at least two litres due to medication, I have a 750ml bottle at work and fill that twice and have a 350 ml I have at night to have my medication and in the morning. I figured I make up the rest as I go along

So, no. No need to carry round big bottles. I do admit I find it harder at the weekend and would only have a bottle of water with me if I was at a long event to even out the cider

If you actually read the article you linked, you’d see that drinking 4L of water in the space of a few hours is indeed harmful, but drinking 4L from when I wake at 6am to when I go to bed around 11pm is just shy of 250ml an hour. That’s about a glass of water per hour. It really isn’t that much.

Any other helpful contributions? If not, I’ll just carry on drinking the same volume of water I’ve drunk for years and years 😘

I’m literally drinking out of my big arse water bottle now. I like it! But yes, I would have survived without it.

I think anything that encourages us to drink more water is a good thing tbh. Better than seeing someone drinking loads of redbulls (used to be me!)

It’s a good trend, I can’t see the harm in it. Unless I’m missing something?

I think as a PP said its partly a commercial thing. Growing up 80s/90s it wasn't really common to eat or drink while out and about bar an ice - cream or fish and chips by the seaside. And then bottled water and take away coffee shops became a thing and now half the people you see have a portable drink with them.
I don't remember people collapsing or becoming dizzy with dehydration before that !
Maybe part of it can be attributed to diet culture in the 80s eg Weight Watchers , Rosemary Connelly. You were always encouraged to drink water to stave off hunger, and then came atkins, paleo, clean eating etc etc all of which also advocate plenty of water.

Kids at school use water bottles as a kind of dummy. They just drink out of habit rather than thirst and then constantly go to the loo.

I did once watch quite a funny Instagram video about how in the 80/90s we’d go out all day with no water and just get a drink maybe at lunch or at a friends but now if you get 5 mins away from your house you’ll collapse of dehydration if you’ve not got your water bottle 🤣 it did make me laugh. Having said that, I actually get really bad headaches if I don’t drink enough and I always have a bottle on me. I didn’t get that as a kid or teen.
At school we’d have a carton of umbungo etc or lunch box type bottle of squash and then we’d drink from the water fountain!
These huge bottles though- just seem to be a money making thing. The Stanley cups are ridiculous and the air up trend is truly over at our school.

I’m one of those people that can easily drink 3-4 litres a day and think nothing of it. I used to take a 2l bottle to work with me but I work on different building sites or void houses so no access to anything else. I can drink all day, always have done.

What I find really irritating is the motivational crap on the sides of bottles now. A blank bottle would be fine, but they all have ‘you’ve got this’ and some other shit printed. I don’t want that!

Ultra-sounds must be a walk in the park for all you 3 or 4 litres a day folk! 🤣

I’ve got better things to do than worry myself about the size of a water bottle someone else chooses to use - you do you. I drink about 4l a day of water/squash/coffee/Diet Coke and use various sizes of water receptacles including a Stanley cup. I couldn’t care less what anyone else thinks about my choices with that!

Its an observation and curiosity why they seem to have got bigger. Water bottles have been around for ages but recently they seem to be enormous. Have we evolved to need more water than previous generations, or are we better educated or more aware that we need to drink water?

As long as no one is asking me to carry their enormous water bottle or drink 4l of water myself I don't have a problem with it but I can still be intrigued how or why water bottles have become so ginormous! And why you'd want to carry that much in one go? I imagine most people have access to drinking water, it would surely be less cumbersome to carry a smaller bottle and refill it (Or why we need reminders from the train company to say we should have a bottle of water - admittedly they don't indicate what size)

I agree with other posters that that is an insane amount of liquid to be drinking every single day.

I run ultra marathons in hot weather and probably wouldn't drink that amount over 13 hours of exercise. Definitely not right.

I’ve explained twice that it isn’t and I don’t give a shiny shit if you wouldn’t drink that much. I do, and I’m not justifying it any further 😂

Don't you spend your life on the loo? Doesn't it affect your electrolytes diluting so much? Presumably not..

There was a thread on here the other day where the OP was worried about her 10(?) year old DS being left alone for an hour and a half and one of the reasons she cited was because no one would remind him to have a drink of water…

People do seem to think that you need to be constantly topping up but the reality is you just pee out a lot of excess. Your body is designed to drink a little too much to be on the safe side of dehydration, so it can deal with excess water relatively easily barring stupid quantities over very short spaces of time etc.

1. No, I wee every 2-3 hours.
2. Also no, my last eGFR was 101, Na+ was 143, K+ 4.8, and Cr 70. All completely normal results. I have drunk that volume of water every day since my teens and have never had wonky electrolytes.

As I have said, <250ml of water per hour really isn’t an abnormal amount. I don’t gulp it, I just sip frequently.

I don't think my bladder could cope with 2 litres of water a day!
I'm sure part of it is habit/training but even after a year of introducing 500-700ml water into my working day I get annoyed at how many more toilet breaks I need.
Maybe I have bladder/pelvic floor envy!

I went to school in the 90s and in general was terrible at remembering to drink up until my late 20s. I struggled to sleep as an older child and was spottier than average as a teen/in my twenties. My digestion was always a bit sluggish. Id regularly feel tired in the evenings after a busy day (normal, really) But these were just minor niggles - the kind of thing (other than the spits) you only realise looking back, really. I drank when I felt thirsty. I wouldn't have thought I was dehydrated in any way and I wouldn't have connected any of these things.

At around 30, I decided to try for 1 litre of water a day (on top of what I got from cups of tea or food) this has now graduated from 1 litre to 2.
Sleep: Absolutely no problem.
Digestion: Great - to the point where I wonder how I ever coped before.
Tiredness: honestly, rarely ever.
Skin: all those years I thought I had a 'dry and oily' skin type - nope, just dehydrated!
I am absolutely one of those 'drink more water it will change your life' people now - although not everyone's the same - but for some people like me it seems to really make a difference! Maybe I am genetically disposed to dehydration as suggested upthread.
I think what I'm trying to get at is - some people increase drinking water and notice no difference, which is fine! Or like an annoying colleague, does it for about a week then stops as she hasn't noticed a difference... But I didn't realise how many things I just put down to 'normal human stuff' were actually because I needed more water.