Drink eight glasses of water a day. Drink water when you’re hungry between meals to feel full. You can drown yourself by drinking too much water. One-use plastic water bottles give you cancer. There’s a lot of information that is fed to us about drinking water these days. But is any of it true, or have we been bamboozled by giant metal drink bottle-toting trends?
People in the 80s and early 90s didn’t think as much about drinking water. It wasn’t the norm to carry a reusable water bottle, have one at your desk while you work, or even virtue signal how hydrated you stay on the daily.
Hydration as a concept wasn’t touted by celebrities, influencers and doctors as something majorly essential for “living well” until the last few decades. And 50 years ago it was merely a means to an end, not something high up on anyone’s priority list. We drank when we felt thirsty.
When did our obsession with hydration actually begin?
In the USA, doctors started to recommend eight glasses a day to patients after the coverage of troops in Operation Desert Shield in the Saudi Desert had bottles of water exported to them, attracting attention to the concept. The influential Your Body’s Many Cries for Water was a book first published in 1992 by American doctor Fereydoon Batmanghelidj.
With this broader trend around hydration surfacing, in 1999 Coca-Cola Co. started exporting bottled water that was sourced locally in the United States around the world, while branding them as being ‘exotic’ – with the product named Dasani. This started the trend of marketing water as a luxury good.
The modern boom in bottled water consumption began around the late 1990s, with sales in the USA skyrocketing from just under two billion gallons per year in 1998.
Don’t get me wrong: human beings have always been aware of the physical effects of a lack of water. But water was initially framed as a fix of thirst — not hydration. The initial mainstream medical and commercial framing of hydration wasn’t advertised commercially until the 80s, spearheaded by sports drinks like Gatorade.
Nowadays, staying hydrated is not just about health, but about overall self-care, luxury and a personal brand.
How did hydration become a trend?
Newer generations invest in water bottles that project their dedication to their own health and appearance, as well as their status as consumers. Luxury water bottles have taken over schools and social media — with people often forking out upwards of $80 on each bottle.
In the early 2000s, parents and educators first started drilling the benefits and essentiality of hydration into Gen Z and Millennials, with pre-schools and schools making it mandatory for students to bring their own bottle to school in Australia.
Slick, high-fashion adjacent advertisements and celebrity paparazzi placements by what used to be considered luxury brands of bottled water (like Evian, San Pelligrino and Fiji Water), catapulted into fashion magazines in the 2000s. Even up until now, no backstage photo at a fashion show is complete with Fiji Water product placement. I remember wanting to only drink Fiji Water because (apparently) that’s what the Olsen twins did.
Now, canned water brands like Liquid Death are subverting the water market by infiltrating cultures that have historically been aligned with “unhealthy” drinks – like energy drinks and beer. Its alternative, heavy-metal styling has aligned water, and luxury, with the counterculture.
We’re looking after ourselves more, as young people become increasingly sober-curious and health-conscious.
“Drinking canned water is a way to lead a life of self-optimisation while still retaining a countercultural spirit,” says Joanna Lowrey, Head of Strategy at leading PR firm Protein Agency.
Meanwhile, new-gen influencers like Luka Sabbat represent campaigns like the I Wanna #Liveyoung campaign for Evian, putting out there that hydration is essential for, yes, living (and staying) young. And after all, we’ve always been obsessed with youth.
Even rappers — a group who have historically influenced the luxury lifestyles and purchases of young people — are getting into the bottled water trend. Last year, GQ posted a YouTube video named “Bobby Shmurda Only Drinks Fiji Water”.
So, where does that leave us?
It’s now medically proven that staying hydrated increases the health of your skin, hair and other organs. No one is disputing that fact. Even breatharians — a group who claim they don’t eat or drink and purely live off oxygen — drink water. Yes, breatharians. You read that correctly.
In Australia, our bottled water market is expected to reach about $2 billion annually by 2030. With Aussies spending an average of $580 on bottled water a year (?!). The projection of this will reduce now young people are buying reusable bottles, but the obsession stays. This shift from one-use bottled water to reusable water bottles is of course rooted in our increasing awareness of the environmental impacts of single-use plastics.
What is now often called an “emotional support water bottle” on social media is now a fashion item. They are an accessory that says you have class. It isn’t convenient to carry a massive metal item around with you all day, but young people don’t care.
You have to suffer for beauty, right? But is this all an obsession with the benefits of hydration itself? Or our image?
It’s both.
By guzzling two or more litres of water a day from our stylish tumbler, we’re saying: “Yes, I take care of myself, and I look good doing it.”
Hydration as an obsession will stay for as long as we’re obsessed with our image, our health and our beauty, it’s got us now. Go on, rock that Frank Green bottle – you’ll feel good doing it.
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